Ozoni お雑煮 is Japanese New Year mochi soup. It is a traditional soup that Japanese people eat on New year’s days. Every household has their own special recipes which are passed down from generation to generation. It is certainly a hearty and filling soup to get through the cold Japanese weather on New year’s days.
What is Ozoni?
Ozoni is a hearty soup with mochi. Japanese love eating it in the colder seasons. Ozoni has been a traditional New Year’s dish in Japan for a very long time, since the time of the samurai. There are many variations across the regions.
Kansai vs Kanto
Mainly there are two types of Ozoni by region; Kanto style & Kansai style. The typical differences are the soup and the mochi rice cake shapes. Kansai style is made with white miso soup with round shaped mochi. On the other hand, in the Kanto region (east around Tokyo), people make mochi soup with soy sauce flavour clear soup with rectangular mochi rice cakes.
Soup
Kanto Style Ozoni
Kanto style Ozoni soup is made with Kelp (konbu) and bonito (Katsuo) dashi base with soy sauce flavor. Because the soup is so simple, it is important to make the Dashi right.
Kansai Style Ozoni
Kansai style Ozoni is usually made with white (Shiro) Miso. There are mainly three Miso types by its color; Red (aka), White (shiro) and Mixed (Awase). Of course, you can use your homemade Miso as I do.
Mochi Shape
Kanto Style Ozoni
In the Kanto region, people grill Rectangular shaped cut mochi in a toaster oven and then add it to the soy sauce flavored clear soup.
Kansai Style Ozoni
In the Kansai region, people cook round-shaped mochi in boiling water and then add it to white miso soup.
Vegetables and other ingredients
Kanto Style
Chicken pieces and fish cakes are also added to Kanto style, usually along with Japanese mustard spinach Komatsuna or Spinach.
Kansai Style
Kansai style Ozoni does not contain any meat but they include taro, flower shapes cut carrot and daikon as you can see in the photos.
Garnishes
Mitsuba
Although I could not get round mochi, I got Mitsuba! Yay, from my Japanese friend who lives nearby. Japanese parsley or Japanese wild parsley is Mitsuba. It is used for garnishing many Japanese dishes such as Chawanmushi. Mitsuba has a distinctive, refreshingly clean and slightly bitter taste.
Yuzu peel
Yuzu is a type of citrus. This is by far my favorite citrus because it has a distinctive aroma and flavor. Both Kanto and Kansai Ozoni use Yuzu peel to garnish and give a refreshing aroma to the soup. If you can not access Yuzu, like me, you can just omit the yuzu.
Beware of Mochi danger
Mochi is very yummy but beware to not eat a lot of it at once, because there is a significant choking hazard and you may potentially DIE. Not even kidding…seriously, people have died. Apparently, old people especially are being warned in Japan of the danger of choking on the mochi (check out this article to know more).
I think it happens quite rarely though, so I’m sure it won’t happen to you…hopefully! It really says something about how delicious mochi and ozoni is though…people risk their lives to eat this dish! I will never stop eating it because it’s so delicious.
Special miso soup bowl
Japanese use special red lacquered soup bowls to produce a renewed and festive ambiance. You can get cheap bowls from shops like Daiso or Online shops. I brought two soup bowls from Japan. But If you don’t have one, of course, you can use any soup bowl as I did in one of the photos.
Tradition runs in my family in Japan
In my family, we eat mochi miso soup in the morning for breakfast on New Year’s Day. My mom says that it is a New Year’s breakfast food, thanking God for good harvesting, that our family lived safely in the previous year, and to receive the grace of God.
My suggestion
When you live outside of Japan, you may not find many of the ingredients unfortunately especially like me living in the Southern hemisphere. Simply because many of the ingredients are not in season. Also, I could not find any round mochi from the local Japanese grocery stores. So we need to be flexible and creative. As there are many different prefectures in Japan that have their own special version of it, we can use special local ingredients to create new Moversions.
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Ozoni – Miso Soup with Mochi (Rice Cake)
Ingredients
Kansai style Ozoni
- 360ml/1.5cups water *1
- 2.5g/2inch kelp (Konbu) or 5cm
- 10g/2cups Bonito flake(katsuobushi)
- 2 tbsp White miso paste
- 40g/0.5 a medium sized carrot
- 40g/0.25 small daikon radish
- 2 round mochi rice cakes
- 2 Shiitake mushroom *2
- 2 leaves Mitsuba for garnish
- 2 slices of Naruto *5
Kanto style Ozoni
- 360ml/1.5cups water
- 2.5g/2inch Kelp(konbu) or 5cm
- 10g/2cups bonito flake(katsuobushi)
- 1 tsp soy sauce *6
- 1 tsp sake *7
- 100g/3.5oz Chicken thigh meat chopped
- 40g/0.5 a medium sized carrot
- 40g/0.25 a small daikon radish
- 2 rectangle mochi
- 2 shiitake mushrooms
- 1 bunch Japanese mustard(Komatsuna) *8
- 2 slices Naruto fish cake
Instructions
Kansai style Ozoni
- Cut the carrot, radish small thin slices.
- Parboil the carrot and radish and cut out to flower shape using Japanese cookie cutter. *3
- Chop stems off the shiitake mushrooms and score cross to create a pattern on mushrooms.
- Pour the water and the strip of the kelp in a sauce pan and let it simmer over low heat for about 15-20 minutes.
- When the small bubbles appear around the kelp and bottom of the saucepan, remove the kelp.
- Turn the heat off and add bonito flakes and leave it for a few minutes.
- Drain the bonito flakes and pour the dashi stock back into the saucepan.
- Place the saucepan over medium heat.
- Add the carrot and radish to the sauce pan and leave it cook for about 5 minutes.
- While the carrot, radish and mushrooms is cooking, cut the mochi in half and put it in the oven to grill for 15 minutes on 180°C(356°F). *4
- Turn the heat off the saucepan after carrot, radish and mushrooms are cooked. Add miso paste (straining it through a small sifter ladle to remove the hard chunks).
- Once the miso has dissolved, put the saucepan back on to medium heat. Watch it carefully and remove from heat just before it boils.
- Once the mochi is done, add the mochi to a bowl and pour the miso soup over the mochi.
- Garnish with Mitsuba and naruto(*5) to serve.
Kanto Style Ozoni *9
- Pour the water and the strip of the kelp in a sauce pan and let it simmer over low heat for about 15-20 minutes.
- When the small bubbles appear around the kelp and bottom of the saucepan, remove the kelp.
- Turn the heat off and add bonito flakes and leave it for a few minutes.
- Drain the bonito flakes and pour the dashi stock back into the saucepan.
- Place the saucepan over medium heat, and add the soy sauce and sake to the dashi.
- Add the chicken meat and cook.
- Add the carrot, daikon, shiitake mushroom and cook for about 5 minutes.
- While the carrot, radish and mushrooms is cooking, cut the mochi in half and put it in the oven to grill for 15 minutes on 180°C(356°F). *4
- Pour some soup into the serving bowl, add mochi on top and pour more soup over the mochi rice cake.
Edie says
Looks great! Where can I the bowls?
Shihoko | Chopstick Chronicles says
Hi Edie, I bought them in Japan but I am sure you can get them online like Amazon 😀
Mihoko says
the stores around me don’t carry the daikon radish. can i use something else?
Shihoko | Chopstick Chronicles says
Hi Mihoko san, you can use any type of radish, or use something different completely. It does not have to be Daikon 😀
pablo says
I enjoyed this one is so great!
Chopstick Chronicles says
wow thank you 😀