Ozoni Recipes

OZONI (JAPANESE NEW YEAR MOCHI SOUP - KANTO STYLE)

Steps:

• Gather all the ingredients.
• Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces and put them in a small bowl, add ¼ tsp kosher salt.
• Add 1 Tbsp sake and mix well with hands. Let the chicken marinated for 15 minutes.
• Meanwhile, blanch the komatsuna or spinach in boiling water and cook until tender (do not overcook). Soak in iced water after removing from pot to stop cooking further.
• Squeeze the water out and cut the komatsuna into 1 ½ inch (3 cm) length.
• Make a knot with each mitsuba's stem. Peel the yuzu skin.
• If there is too much pith (the white fuzzy thing) was removed along with yuzu's skin, trim with knife. Julienne the yuzu peel very thinly.
• Add 4 cups (960 ml) dashi in a large saucepan or pot and bring it to boil. Once boiling, add the chicken pieces.
• Once all the chicken is added, cover to cook for 5-7 minutes, depending on the size of chicken.
• Once the chicken is cooked, skim the foam and fat on the surface.
• Add 1 Tbsp sake, 1 Tbsp soy sauce, and 1 tsp kosher salt. Mix well and keep it on simmer.
• When everything else is ready, start toasting mochi in a toaster oven. Optionally you can do this on a frying pan or oven as well.
• Serve the chicken and soup, add the mochi and komatsuna, and finally topped with mitsuba and yuzu. Enjoy immediately.

JUNE'S OZONI

Steps:

• Make chicken stock by cooking chicken breasts in 8 cups boiling water and 2 teaspoons salt. Cook in boiling water for 10 minutes, (add dried scallops here if you like) then lower heat and cook for about 30 minutes. While making stock, wash and drain all vegetables. Cut mizuna into 2 strips (you won't need much of this-just to add green color). Slice the kamaboko fairly thin. Put a few mochi into toaster and toast until puffy.
• Remove chicken from stock onto a plate. While chicken is cooling, strain the soup in either cheesecloth or some kind of cloth to strain* to a clean pot. Add the carrots and daikon and cook until tender (about 10 to 15 minutes). (Shred 1 breast of chicken and add to broth. Save the rest to make chicken salad or whatever for another time.) Check flavor and add salt if needed. Just before serving, put mizuna in soup just to parboil-must be crunch/crisp. Put toasted mochi in a bowl, pour the soup over mochi, then put several slices of kamaboko on top and serve.

NEW YEAR'S DAY OZONI SOUP

Steps:

• Place mushrooms in a bowl and cover with warm water; let soak, about 15 minutes. Drain and squeeze out water from mushrooms; slice.
• Set oven rack about 6 inches from the heat source and preheat the oven's broiler on high. Place mochi on a baking sheet.
• Broil mochi, turning frequently, until inflated, crisp, and slightly browned, about 5 minutes. Cut into 1-inch strips.
• Combine water and dashi-no-moto in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until dashi is dissolved, 2 to 3 minutes. Add chicken, soy sauce, and salt; simmer until chicken is no longer pink in the center, about 15 minutes.
• Mix shrimp, mushrooms, spinach, carrots, daikon radish, and bamboo shoots into chicken mixture; simmer until vegetables are tender and shrimp is cooked through, about 10 minutes.
• Divide mochi strips among 4 bowls and top with soup. Garnish soup with kamaboko slices.

OZONI

Steps:

• Soak shiitake in a bowl of lukewarm water.
• Chop daikon and chinese cabbage in 3 inch pieces.
• Cut leeks in 2 inch diagonal pieces.
• Cut carrots thinly in 2 inch long diagonal pieces.
• Roughly chop mitsuba leaves.
• Top and tail snow peas.
• Cut chicken into 2 inch pieces.
• In a large pan, boil 10 cups or so of water.
• Add dashi (unless you have dried kelp, in which case boil the kelp to make dashi manually, then remove after 5 mins).
• Add shiitake and the water in which they were soaking.
• Add vegetables that take longer to cook first: daikon, radish.
• Proceed to add the rest of the vegetables and chicken, leaving peas and mitsuba till last minute so they don't lose their colour.
• After 15 minutes or so, add mochi and soy sauce.
• Once mochi is soft and gooey, the zoni is ready to serve.

OZONI (MOCHI SOUP)

Steps:

• Make the chicken stock: Rinse the chicken parts. In a pot, bring the chicken, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 2 quarts water to a simmer over medium-high heat. Continue to cook at a low simmer for 30 minutes, reducing the heat as needed to prevent a full boil (which would cloud the broth).
• Strain the broth and discard the chicken or reserve the meat for another use. Add the mirin to the broth and set aside.
• Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Add the satoimo and blanch until the skin is soft enough to slip off easily, about 3 minutes. Drain the satoimo, then use a spoon to scrape off the skin. Slice the satoimo into ¼-inch-thick rounds, then transfer them to a small saucepan. Add enough of the chicken broth to cover. Bring to a boil over high, then reduce the heat to simmer until soft, about 15 minutes.
• In lacquerware soup bowls or other small bowls, neatly arrange mizuna, satoimo and 1 or 2 slices of Naruto. Peel one or two long strips from the yuzu, then cut the strips very thinly crosswise. In a medium saucepan, reheat the chicken stock. Taste and adjust salt as needed.
• To serve, heat the mochi until puffy and soft, for a few minutes in a toaster oven or under the broiler, or 30 seconds on high in a microwave, and add it to the bowls. Immediately ladle about 1/2 cup hot broth into each bowl - before the mochi hardens - and garnish with a pinch of yuzu peel.