Quick and easy recipe: Ozouni---New Year’s mochi soup
Japanese people cook and eat ‘Ozouni’ during the New Year period, in addition to ‘Osechi ryourii’, which is another typical New Year’s food. While Osechi ryouri can be a little complicated to prepare, it takes only 10 minutes to cook Ozouni.
Ozouni has regional variations: Square rice cakes (‘omochi’ in Japanese) and dashi soup are the common Kanto-style, whereas round rice cakes and white miso soup are typical Kansai-style. With the New Year’s holiday just a month away, now is a good time to learn how to cook Ozouni! Since we live in Tokyo, here is the recipe for the Kanto style. Hope that you enjoy the Ozouni and welcoming the New Year like the Japanese!
Quick and easy recipe:
Ingredients 【serves 4】
Rice cake
4-8 pieces (one or two pieces per serving)
Chicken
150g Cut into bite-size pieces.
Komatsuna*
200g Cut into 4 cm lengths
Kamaboko
Cut into 1cm wide. Optional
Dashi soup
5 cups
Soy sauce
2 tbs
Salt
1/2 tsp
*Komatsuna is a kind of dark green leafy vegetables.
Method
1. Grill the rice cakes in the toaster oven or the grill until they are lightly
brown.
2. Heat the dashi soup in a pan and add soy sauce and salt. Add chicken
and komatsuna and simmer for a few minutes.
3. Put baked rice cakes into dashi soup in the pan and simmer for a
minute.
Pour into a cup, and garnish it with a slice of kamaboko. Voila! Done! Bon Appétit!
Attention: Please be careful when eating rice cake, especially children and the elderly. Every year, we see in the news that a few people have choked to death eating rice cake.