In
Japanese cuisine, raw horse meat is called
sakura (桜) or
sakuraniku (桜肉,
sakura means "
cherry blossom",
niku means "meat") because of its pink color. It can be served raw as
sashimi in thin slices dipped in soy sauce, often with ginger and onions added.
[67] In this case, it is called
basashi (馬刺し).
Basashi is popular in some regions of Japan and is often served at
izakaya bars. Fat, typically from the neck, is also found as
basashi, though it is white, not pink. Horse meat is also sometimes found on menus for
yakiniku (a type of barbecue), where it is called
baniku (馬肉, literally "horse meat") or
bagushi (馬串, "skewered horse"); thin slices of raw horse meat are sometimes served wrapped in a
shiso leaf.
Kumamoto,
Nagano, and
Ōita are famous for
basashi, and it is common in the
Tōhoku region, as well. Some types of canned "corned meat" in Japan include horse as one of the ingredients.
[68][69]
Aside from raising local draft horses for meat,
[70][71] Japan imports living horses (from Canada) and meat from several countries — the five largest horse meat exporters to Japan are Canada, Mexico, Italy, Argentina, and Brazil.
[72]
In
Kazakhstan and
Kyrgyzstan, horse meat is a large part of the diet, due mainly to the nomadic roots of the population. Some of the dishes include sausages called
kazy and
chuchuk or
shuzhyk made from the meat using the guts as the sausage skin,
zhaya made from hip meat, which is smoked and boiled,
jal (or zhal) made from neck fat which is smoked and boiled,
karta made from a section of the rectum that is smoked and boiled, and
sur-et which is kept as dried meat.
[73]
Mongolian cuisine includes salted horse meat sausages called
kazy are produced as a regional delicacy by the Kazakhs. Generally, Mongols prefer beef and mutton (though during the extremely cold Mongolian winter, some people prefer horse meat due to its low cholesterol). It is kept unfrozen, and traditionally people think horse meat helps warm them up.
[74][75]
Other Asian nations import processed horse meat from Mongolia.
[72][76][77]
