Yes this is a redo… If you happened to try to visit last night between 7-8 pm, the site was down and I had to have the site restored to a state from a couple of weeks ago. Reminder to do more frequent backups… However, nothing on the web is ever truly lost, I was able to salvage the lost two posts from cached pages on google!
My Japanese grandmother used to welcome the new year with an elaborate feast of traditional foods that required days of preparation, similar to the one I posted about here by my Aunt Tomiko a few years ago. Like I said, elaborate and symbolic dishes that none of us learned how to make, so it’s a good thing that you can order platters at the local Nijiya market as pictured above.
I wish I could afford the local gourmet version for $250 from Peko-Peko Kitchen in SF, but I would have had to purchase two to feed my family! So instead, I cobbled together a meal with fresh crab from Half Moon Bay, a pile of Chinese Spareribs, drunken tangy chicken wings from the Just Hungry blog, California Rolls, a variety of fresh salads, a couple of sashimi platters, the osechi bento box, along with homemade ginger spice cookies and ice cream.
No new years celebration is complete without bowls of Ozoni, a traditional soup comprised of dashi broth with pounded rice cakes and vegetables. My sister Barbara is an ozoni master and we were so lucky that she came up from soCal to join us and make her version which includes napa cabbage, surume (dried shredded squid, trust me this is soo good), slices of kamaboko (fish cake), satoimo (boiled starchy potato) and kinpira gobo that she also made the day before. Kirk from the inimitable mmm-yoso foodblog posted an excellent recipe for gobo here.
My sister softens the mochi cakes by simmering them in a hot water bath for a few minutes before serving, that way they are tender and pliable, that’s just the way we like them in our family. This is my cousin Megu feeding her son the mochi, it’s really soft and stretchy. A word of warning about mochi, which is made from pounded rice. Each cake is equivalent to one bowl of rice and eating one is never enough, so I’m just saying that you begin the feast with something like two bowls of rice. My father once ate 9 mochi (yes nine) and had to lie down for the rest of the day moaning about how full he was…
I had an excess of kaiware (spicy daikon sprouts), kimpira gobo and Momofuku ginger-scallion sauce (that I forgot to even put out) which made excellent and flavorful accompaniments for breakfast the next day. In my mind, I call the ginger scallion sauce midas sauce because everything it touches is instantly transformed into something so dazzling that makes me want to hoard mountains of it under my scaly dragon’s belly… I enlisted Mr. K to make the eggs, they were velvety and creamy and made the perfect base for these flavorful condiments. The kaiware (daikon sprouts) have a vibrant and fresh, radishy kick to them which complemented the eggs perfectly. I added slices of cucumber and avocado, some shishito peppers and shiso leaves, which were surprisingly good wrapped around the egg along with strands of the savory gobo.
A very fine start to the new year! Kind of healthy too. Best wishes for a happy and joyous new year!
6 restored comments
Rosa
Posted January 3, 2012 at 10:03 am | Permalink
Wonderful and refined food!
Happy New Year and best wishes for 2012!
Cheers,
Rosa
Ben
Posted January 3, 2012 at 11:09 am | Permalink
Always fun seeing your new year’s celebration feast! This year sounds like another success. Did you host at your host? Is the Momofuku ginger-scallion sauce basically just chopped ginger and scallion with oil? Or is there another secret ingredient that makes it the “midas sauce”?
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BeefNoGuy
Posted January 3, 2012 at 5:48 pm | Permalink
That Ozoni looks absolutely fantastic, in fact everything does!
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Cookie
Posted January 4, 2012 at 10:46 am | Permalink
What a feast! I’ve never seen a traditional Japanese New Year dinner before so thanks for sharing!
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Barbara
Posted January 4, 2012 at 10:40 pm | Permalink
Thanks for the kind words sis!
foodhoe
Posted January 5, 2012 at 7:56 am | Permalink
rosa, best wishes to you too!
ben, I accidentally deleted the sentence with more detail about midas sauce… It has a splash of sherry vinegar, soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, and grapeseed oil. It is amazing and there is a link for the recipe in the post.
Thanks BeefNoGuy
Cookie, it wasn’t very traditional, but the Ozoni was!
Barb, I’m so glad you guys arrived early, I was starving!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Aiieee! So sorry to hear about your site crashing. A food blogger’s nightmare for sure. Glad you were able to restore your posts. We don’t want to miss any of your wonderful pictures!
awww, thanks for the encouragement! I was definitely trying to do things better left to the pros…
What a feast! Looks amazing. I also absolutely adore the look of that little Japanese bento box (not sure if that qualities as a bento but that’s that I’m calling it). Your new design looks great, sorry about the crashing though…
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hungry dog, thank you! and yes, it is a bento box