Ozoni (Mochi Soup)
- Total Time
- 1 hour
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 1pound chicken wings, necks, feet or meaty bones
- 1½teaspoons fine sea salt, plus more as needed
- 3tablespoons mirin
- 4golf ball-size or 2 egg-size satoimo (taro root)
- 3ounces mizuna (about 4 cups), roots trimmed and discarded, stems and leaves cut into 2-inch lengths
- 8 to 16(¼-inch-thick) slices Naruto kamaboko (red-and-white spiraled fishcake)
- 1yuzu or Meyer lemon
- 8pieces plain mochi (see Note)
Preparation
- Step 1
Make the chicken stock: Rinse the chicken parts. In a pot, bring the chicken, 1½ 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).
- Step 2
Strain the broth and discard the chicken or reserve the meat for another use. Add the mirin to the broth and set aside.
- Step 3
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.
- Step 4
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.
- Step 5
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 ½ cup hot broth into each bowl — before the mochi hardens — and garnish with a pinch of yuzu peel.
- Not to be confused with sweet mochi, plain mochi is often kept in the freezer section of Asian markets in America. It can be microwaved or toasted directly from the freezer.
Private Notes
Comments
Sato imo is not the same species as Hawaiian taro. It does need to be cooked but the treatment in this recipe is sufficient for removing calcium oxalate.
Taro (Colocasia esculenta) root, is also used to make Hawaiian Poi. It has enough oxalate to be toxic if eaten raw (see Wikipedia): I doubt that blanching the intact root for 3 minutes would remove much of it. Traditionally, sliced/mashed taro's soaked in water overnight, with further processing by boiling (discarding the water after both steps). In the recipe, I'd perform Step 3 with plain water, adding the sliced taro to the broth after it's cooked.
My family is from Fukui and we use a white miso. Broth made with konbu, round omochi, and then we sprinkle bonito flakes on top of it. I do think that literally every family does it differently.
H-Mart had none of the key ingredients. So we substituted Korean rice cakes for mochi, turnip greens for mizuna, and smoked salmon for fish cakes. It was hearty and pretty delicious, as long as you can handle the spicy mustard effect.
Thank you for including this recipe in the NYT. We eat Ozoni for New Year’s but as a 3rd generation Japanese, it was interesting to hear about the different styles of preparation in various regions of Japan. I did not know about round vs rectangular mochi, miso vs clear, chicken vs konbu dashi. This year I tried the Kyoto style with the sweet miso (recipe found elsewhere online) but I may try this version next time with the colorful sliced fishcake in the clear broth!
Well, my Japanese grocery had none of these things. The 100, 000 ft² international market had only the chicken parts and a Meyer lemon. Subbed tender young curly mustard greens for the mizuna, Yamasa kamaboko for the Naruto and Shoyu chicken manapua for the plain mochi. Guessing I'm making something different altogether but hoping it will still be delicious. At least I snagged some gorgeous Russian pastries for a treat after cooking!