Happy new year! 明けましておめでとうございます!
I’m still compiling the things that I cooked for Oshogatsu because I just received my iron egg from Oigen (the only made-in-Japan brand I could find on Amazon), which provides the iron that is indispensable (so the recipe say) for making sure that your kuromame (black beans) turn out glossy and pitch black.
An iron egg! Which also improves the sheen on eggplant while also adding iron to your food.
I don’t quite understand what the iron does for the beans, but much appreciated reading through this forum on the topic. It is true that the recipe on the back of the bag of Hokkaido black beans (also a note that Japanese black beans are not like American black beans, they are a soy bean varietal) calls for “rusty nails” to keep the beans black, but that most people now use a piece of cooking iron. While helenjp notes that an iron pot would also work, I don’t know that I would use one often enough to buy one, although I love the drama of these wood-lidded pots from Oigen.
I’m also waiting a couple of days for the kagamiwari (breaking apart of the ceremonial kagamimochi), which seems to occur on January 11 in Kanto and January 15 in Kansai. As I’m flying to Japan on January 12, I will have to settle for an earlier kagamiwari, after which I’d like to try the ozoni that of my father’s family - a simple osumashi (dashi, mirin, salt/shoyu) with mitsuba and kamaboko. Clean and elegant.
Ozoni with mitsuba and kamaboko
This seems an appropriate way, then, to resolve that in 2024, I must grow my own mitsuba again, as Tenichi does not always stock it and it is just so so indispensable for everything Japanese. The other day, as I stocked up on daikon, yuzu, and mitsuba from Suzuki Farm, I had a bundle of mitsuba left over and used it to make a not-quite kakiage to accompany our toshikoshi New Year’s soba (which also dually purposed as a use for my sourdough discard). This was a very shallow-fried kakiage and more akin to (dare I say it) last month’s latkes than a true kakiage, but delicious nonetheless.
Shallow-fried kakiage with soba, kamaboko, homemade datemaki, and senmaizuke. I should also procure a proper holder for chopsticks, yes?
Recipe for sourdough-discard kakiage
Handful of mitsuba, torn
Handful of shiitake, torn
3-4 slices of kamaboko, sliced into 1/2 inch cubes
A small spoonful of sourdough discard (approximately 30-40 grams)
1 egg
Splash of cold seltzer (or regular water)
Oil (I used peanut)
Loosen discard with the egg and splash of seltzer until it is the viscosity of crepe batter. Tear in mitsuba, shiitake, and kamaboko (thinly sliced onions, carrots, burdock, and shrimp are also delicious and traditional).
Heat a large splash of oil in your pan (I used my carbon steel). When shimmering, spoon in the filling of the batter and then drizzle with the remaining batter. Press down with spatula and cook for 2-3 minutes.
Flip and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Serve with soba.
In addition to the mitsuba, I also ordered daikon and yuzu from Suzuki Farm. While daikon is sold throughout farmer’s markets, they all are oddly fibrous and stringy, so I prefer to use the ones from Suzuki Farms (sold in Japanese supermarkets as well) for classic Japanese preparations like oden. I was also excited to find fresh yuzu, which is not common for me to find and while my mother enjoys buckets of it from her aunt’s yuzu tree, I have been stretching my precious $6 yuzu.
Using the juice as part of the acid element for the sunomono of daikon and carrot
Using the skin as a martini garnish
Using the skin as a topping for ozoni and soba
Simmering the skinned ozoni for an instant in a sukiyaki
Planting the seeds (fingers crossed! apparently they can yield fruit in 10 years, although this feels far more ambitious than my mitsuba project)
I don’t know what to do with my remaining yuzu - infuse it in gin? make the world’s tiniest marmalade? Wwyd?
Favorites!
Nenrinya baumkuchen. I asked a friend to pick one up several months ago on his last trip to Tokyo. He ran out of time and brought back a different, but still very tasty version from Narita. I was thrilled then, to be surprised by a New Year’s Eve Nenrinya drop-off which he cabbed over direct to our New Year’s Eve gathering from a return flight to JFK. Nenrinya is absolutely the superior baumkuchen (and also the superior omiyage). Its edges are jagged and crusted with sugar and it is ever-so-sticky from the almond flour. I will be stocking up on these in a couple of weeks.
If you are looking for something more shareable on your Japan trip, Yoku Moku’s cigare cookies are also recommended (by me). If you are flying out of Kansai, you must pick up a box of akafukumochi (local to Ise)- smooth red bean paste surrounding mochi.
He also brought us back a bag of (RIP NYC location!) City Bakery marshmallows and a photo of the Tokyo location’s “New York Meat Pie.” But what is a New York Meat Pie?
The drama of this bottle of Beau Joie champagne that another friend brought over. Merci beaucoup :)
Too much food at Daesung Korean Noodle in Flushing