Zuiki tōji-maki with conger eel in a shinjo coating, lily bulb simmered in happō dashi

This is the simmered course. For the zuiki tōji-maki with conger eel in a shinjo coating, the obvious approach would be to simply add simmered conger eel, but I deliberately mash it into a shinjo coating so it's clear a craftsman made it. If you mash simmered conger eel as it is, the skin gets mixed in and turns messy, so once it's torn apart I pull off the skin, then slowly simmer the skin-on flesh in nothing but water and sake. Once the thick end of a chopstick goes in easily, I cut in the sugar all at once, then the soy sauce, and turn off the heat after a while. Then I lift out the conger eel, reduce the cooking liquid, and make a glaze. The conger eel is pressed through a fine sieve, thinned with the reduced liquid just before it becomes a full glaze, and poured over the tōji-maki.
For the lily bulb simmered in happō dashi, I cut into the base of a peony-cut lily bulb, skewer it, and parboil it; before it's fully cooked I lift it out, turn it upside down, splash it with sake alone, and bring it straight to a boil. Once it's cooked through, I toss in the sugar all at once. That stops the lily bulb from falling apart.
The komatsuna in a first-frost simmer creates the look of the season's first frost using egg white.