Osechi ryouri

[helenjp]

Osechi (food for New Year in Japan) for 2017

The jubako (lacquered set of boxes) has:
Vegetables on the bottom layer (burdock root with ground sesame, kelp rolls, devil's tongue root twists, asparagus, simmered dried shiitake mushrooms)
Meats in the middle layer (my husband's favorites - ham, nibuta pork roll, thickened omelet roll, and vinegared chrysanthemum petals and turnip slices). This layer doesn't look very decorative, does it!
Mostly traditional goodies on the top layer (black beans in syrup, octopus in vinegar, datemaki egg and fish paste "cake" roll, chrysanthemum greens with sesame, sujiko salted salmon roe, vinegared little shad fish pickled in millet, steamed grilled fish-cake, honey gravlax, squid and salted smelt roe
The lid of the box - it has a pine tree motif.
Sweet potato mashed with syrup and mixed with chestnuts....I absent-mindedly forgot a step, so it's not as yellow as it should be.
Dishes of vinegared shreds of daikon giant radish and carrot, topped with sujiko salted salmon roe
Sticky rice and red cowpeas, topped with toasted sesame seeds and salt
Clear chicken and dashi soup with fish sausage, chicken, snapper, carrot, sato-imo (a type of taro), daikon giant radish, Japanese dividing onion naga-negi, mustard greens, fish sausage, and dried shiitake mushrooms...but no grilled mochi (rice cakes) this year.

Edited January 1, 2017 by helenjp
Idiocy (log)

[Sally-chan]

On 1/1/2017 at 1:54 AM, helenjp said:

Osechi (food for New Year in Japan) for 2017

The jubako (lacquered set of boxes) has:
Vegetables on the bottom layer (burdock root with ground sesame, kelp rolls, devil's tongue root twists, asparagus, simmered dried shiitake mushrooms)
Meats in the middle layer (my husband's favorites - ham, nibuta pork roll, thickened omelet roll, and vinegared chrysanthemum petals and turnip slices). This layer doesn't look very decorative, does it!
Mostly traditional goodies on the top layer (black beans in syrup, octopus in vinegar, datemaki egg and fish paste "cake" roll, chrysanthemum greens with sesame, sujiko salted salmon roe, vinegared little shad fish pickled in millet, steamed grilled fish-cake, honey gravlax, squid and salted smelt roe
The lid of the box - it has a pine tree motif.
Sweet potato mashed with syrup and mixed with chestnuts....I absent-mindedly forgot a step, so it's not as yellow as it should be.
Dishes of vinegared shreds of daikon giant radish and carrot, topped with sujiko salted salmon roe
Sticky rice and red cowpeas, topped with toasted sesame seeds and salt
Clear chicken and dashi soup with fish sausage, chicken, snapper, carrot, sato-imo (a type of taro), daikon giant radish, Japanese dividing onion naga-negi, mustard greens, fish sausage, and dried shiitake mushrooms...but no grilled mochi (rice cakes) this year.

 

What a gorgeous spread! This is what we served this year. I had a similar  issue with my kuri kinton last year, but it was much worse. This year I was able to find kuchinashi no mi which did the trick. We also had ozoni and dashimaki tamago not pictured. The kobumaki was a bust this year, we used fresh salmon and it tasted a bit dry. Will try and procure dried herring next year. I also hope to try a variation of sekihan using amanatto that my mom mentioned (she's from Hokkaido) that I have never tried. I think my husband would love the second layer of your box- thanks for the inspiration!

[helenjp]

Love your lidded nimono - it looks so pretty in a deep container.

Kobumaki - I tried it with the herring and other fillings, and we finally decided that we really just like the kombu rolls without the filling! I used to make a recipe that cooked chicken drumlets and kobumaki together (but served separately). That was tasty, but the chicken-simmered kombu really doesn't keep well.

Kuchinashi - it's possible to make quite yellow sweet potato without it, as long as you soak the cut sweet potato in several changes of water, and then when you cook it, replace with fresh cold water at least once as it comes to the boil (you can even repeat that step for perfection!). You served your kinton "chakin-shibori" style? They look so cute, and easy to eat too.

Talking of amanatto, my favorite thing to do with left-over black beans (if cooked, I just drain them and rinse a bit, if dried, cook first) is to make a yellow okowa with sticky rice and kuchinashi and black beans. I add the cooked black beans at the end, to keep the colors separate, and it would work perfeclty with amanatto. It's what we often have for the first obento of the year!

[Sally-chan]

I'm thinking that we may go your route serving kombu rolls without the filling. And thank you for the tips on keeping the sweet potatoes yellow. The first time I made them they turned a horrible gray. This year I did try to make the sweet potatoes chakin-shibori style - my technique still needs work.

 

I will have to try the yellow okowa. It sounds delicious and I imagine the contrast of yellow and black colors to be striking. I've been trying to procure the beans to make amanatto. My best guess is shiro hana mame (my mom just emembers what they look like, but not the name), but am not having much luck procuring them. I might just make them with black beans and try the yellow okowa.