Knead wheat flour, roll it thin, cut it into squares of about three centimeters. Then pinch two adjacent corners of each square together, which folds it into a triangle. Those go into a miso broth with daikon, carrot, taro, burdock, pumpkin, shiitake, and leek, and simmer.

The name comes from the shape. A mi is a winnowing basket, the farm tool used to separate grain, and the folded dough resembles one. Others say it simply looks like an ear, which is what the word mimi means in ordinary speech, and that no farm tool is involved at all.

There is a third account particular to Jukkoku, the village this belongs to. Warriors of the Genji are said to have eaten it to celebrate a victory, and it was called fukumi, the lucky winnowing basket, for scooping up good fortune, with the word wearing down to mimi over time.

None of the three can be verified and the village does not appear troubled by that. It is made on the morning of new year's day, and at festivals, and whenever a celebration brings a crowd into a house. The broth is built on dried sardine stock and miso, and the vegetables are whatever the household has stored. A piece of dough folded into the shape of the tool you use to gather things in.