Beauty and the Bowl - Ozoni (Japanese Mochi Soup)

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Ozoni, a traditional Japanese New Year's dish, is as simple and complex as a haiku.

One of the things I love about Japanese food is the presentation. After preparing this beautiful Ozoni soup at my Japanese cooking class last week, I wondered if I would ever go to the trouble of making it at home. If I did, I think I would be way too needy. I'd need to hear gushing about the delicacy of the broth, the beauty of the carrot flower, the symbolism of the hexagon shaped daikon, and that cute little knot hand tied in the pink fish cake. And, of course, the essential mochi (missing from the photo above) would have to be praised.

And if guests didn't voluntarily start gushing, I think I would gently point out these things to them. "Did you see that little knot in the fish cake? I tied that myself. And ya' know those carrots don't grow in flower shapes by themselves." So obnoxious.

This is a soup that should be admired and then savored slowly because the cook went to a lot of effort to make it so beautiful and to imbue it with symbolism.

Special cutters are used to make the flower shapes.


This is how the spinach looks before it is cut into 2" lengths for the soup.

Ozoni

1/2 lb. chicken (deboned leg or breast)
6" length daikon (white radish)
1/2 bunch spinach
1 medium carrot
1 cake kamaboko (fish cake)
4 cups dashi (see previous post for recipe)
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. soy sauce
mochi

- Slice the chicken on the diagonal into thin pieces and sprinkle with salt. Blanch in lightly salted water until whitish . Drain.

- Pare lengths of radish into hexagonal shape and then cut into slices about 1/4" thick. Parboil in lightly salted water until alost tender, about 10 minutes. Drain. (Hexagons make up the tortoiseshell pattern. The tortoise is the symbol of longevity.)

- Steam the spinach. (I will have to add more details later about how to get it into the shape shown in the photo above.)

- Peel the carrot and cut into 1/4" rounds. Cut into flower shapes. Parboil in lightly salted water until almost tender, about 10 minutes.

- Slice the fish cake into 1/4" half rounds.
- Bring the dashi just to a boil in a pot. Turn down heat and keep at simmer. Then stir in salt and soy sauce and season to taste.

- Arrange spinach, single carrot slice, single daikon slice, chicken, mochi and fish cake in soup bowl. Ladle hot broth into bowl. Garnish with sprig of mizuna.

I may not recreate this at home, but I promise: if someone serves this to me, I will be the most appreciative, gushing guest in the dining room.

(This recipes was submitted to Blazing Hot Wok's monthly regional recipe roundup. The Japanese event is being hosted by Wandering Chopsticks.)