- Hi, it's Rie.
These are some Japanese recipes for winter season.
Osechi is an assortment of special foods
we eat to celebrate New Year's.
Usually, people make them at the end of December,
and it's eaten during January 1st through 3rd.
It also has a celebratory purpose.
So, each dish has a meaning or wish
for the year associated with it.
For example, shrimp is often seen in osechi
to symbolize longevity.
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New Year's Day is one of the biggest holy days in Japan,
and many shops used to close during the time.
On top of that, people traditionally wouldn't cook
during the New Year's holiday,
so osechi was created to last
through preservation techniques.
The combination of red and white colors
represents joy and happiness,
so you'll see a lot of food
in red and white color in osechi.
Another staple is namasu,
which is pickled daikon radish and carrots.
For this video, we will be using smoked salmon
instead of carrots.
The white color of daikon,
and the red and orange color of the smoked salmon,
add festivity in the osechi box.
Osechi contains a lot of different dishes,
and it takes a lot of time to cook traditional ways.
So nowadays, we can purchase osechi
from restaurants, shops, or online.
But if you want to try to make it,
I recommend the simplified recipe Tasty Japan made.
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In the states, the most popular kind of mochi
might be mochi ice cream,
but when I think of mochi,
my mind immediately goes to the pounded kind.
You steam mochi rice,
and pound until the mochi rice becomes a smooth blob.
Freshly pounded mochi is very soft and sticky.
For preservation purposes,
we usually air-dry mochi so it will last a long time.
Once it's dry, it becomes hard,
but will soften again when you heat it up.
If you are curious how we make mochi the traditional way,
check out the "Eating Your Feed" mochi episode.
We usually eat mochi during January,
often as a New Year's food.
My favorite way of eating mochi
is simply wrapped with nori seaweed,
and dipped in soy sauce with a big pinch of sugar,
but you can eat your mochi in a lot of ways.
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Ozoni is a soup eaten over New Year's,
known for having mochi in it.
Each prefecture has a different way of making ozoni,
usually featuring ingredients that prefecture is famous for.
My hometown Hiroshima is famous for oysters,
so some people add oysters in ozoni.
However, I'm allergic to oysters,
so I never had one with oysters.
As you can see, we used the rectangular mochi
for the first soup,
but the shape of the mochi differs in the
east and west side of Japan.
White miso ozoni is famous in Kyoto,
and Kyoto is located in the west side,
so they use round mochi instead of rectangular mochi.
Supposedly, the reason for the different shapes
is because eastern Japan has more cities
with higher populations, like Tokyo,
so cutting it into rectangular shapes
instead of rolling it into balls
allows for faster production.
Ozoni is usually a savory soup,
but some prefectures eat a sweet version,
like this adzuki bean soup.
Ozoni is also another celebratory dish for New Year's,
and it's a home-cooked meal,
so it may be difficult to find at the restaurants.
My mom makes ozoni with grilled eel bone dashi,
chicken, daikon radish, and carrot.
It's slightly smoky from grilled eel bone dashi,
and I always look forward to eating it for New Year's.
There are so many varieties,
but mochi is the must-have ingredient for ozoni.
Ozoni is one of my favorite foods to eat during wintertime.
Nabe, or Japanese-style hot pot,
is such a staple dish during wintertime.
It's easy to make, makes you warm,
and loaded with healthy ingredients,
like vegetables and hearty meats.
My favorite things to put into nabe are napa cabbage,
mushrooms, such as shiitake or enoki,
tofu, chicken, and scallions,
but there are a lot of creative ways of making nabe.
Adding cheese as a topping, and this layering style,
is getting really popular.
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Spicy nabe is another popular style.
For this video, we used Szechuan peppers
to give a nice kick.
It gives a tingly and numbing sensation.
Kimchi is another great ingredient
to add in if you want to make spicy nabe.
We call it nabe because nabe means pot.
We usually use a specific clay pot called a donabe,
where we make nabe,
but if you don't have one,
you can use any kind of pot with a lid.
Once you eat all the vegetables and meat,
don't throw away the leftover soup.
You can add cooked rice to make congee,
or you can add udon or ramen noodles to finish.
Nabe is a great dish when you host a dinner party,
because it brings people together, and it's easy to prepare.
You can also keep adding ingredients as people eat.
It's a never-ending food.
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A few years ago, sculpting grated daikon in nabe
got really popular in Japan.
My mom is the one who told me about this trend,
and she sent me a picture of what she made.
It was so cute.
I wanted to try it myself,
and came up with the idea for this video.
One of the most famous styles of nabe is called chankonabe,
known as a dish eaten by sumo wrestlers.
Sumo wrestlers eat a lot of nabe for their meals,
because it's well-balanced and very filling.
So, I figured that I would combine chankonabe
with the sculpted daikon trend,
and make a nabe dish with a sumo wrestler in it.
Once you grate the daikon,
make sure to squeeze out the moisture,
so it's easy to make a shape,
and the nabe won't get too watery.
Enjoy making this dish with your
favorite animal or character.
Thank you so much for watching.
Those are my favorite winter recipes.
I'd like to hear what you make during winter.
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