In my last post I ended it with a picture of mochi soup that we eat for good luck every New Years morning. This is a Japanese tradition that we’ve adapted in my family even though my grandmother is the only Japanese person in the family. I like to think the rest of us are Japanese at heart.
Preparation for this meal begins days before when we start soaking the mochi rice and shop for the ingredients. Mochi rice requires 2 days of immersion in water before it is added to the electric mochi-making machine. Traditionally, Japanese families come together for a “mochi pounding” where they perform this process by hand. I have participated in one of these laborious poundings in the past so I can fully appreciate our machine version.
Next comes the Japanese stew called Umani, which translates to “delicious cooking”. Others may know this as nishime and according to my grandma “umani” is a term used locally in Hawaii. I also read that nishime is the same thing but after it has cooked together as a stew, the vegetables are then taken out and served separately. Fun facts about umani- each ingredient represents something in life and should be prepared with an odd number of vegetables for good harmony. Umani may appear daunting due to its interesting assortment of scary-looking vegetables and smells. A fun description of this meal can be found here. I grew up eating this stuff and love it so much that I asked my mom this year to teach me how to make it. Following is my mom’s version of Umani (adapted from Mrs.Kunikyo):
1) Par-boil araimo (Japanese potato) until tender then peel and cut into bite-size pieces.
2) Soak shitake mushrooms and nishime konbu (seaweed).
3) Peel gobo (burdock root) and cut diagonally.
4) Open cans of bamboo shoot and cut into little triangles.
5) Cut up the aburage (tofu).
6) Cut up the konyaku (jelly-like substance from a potato).
7) Open cans of whole mushrooms. Drain and cut into pieces.
8) Peel and cut carrots.
9) Peel and cut hasu (lotus root).
10) Cut and tie konbu (seaweed) in knots. (This represents fertility)
11) Remove shitake stems and cut up. *Save some shitake water
12) Boil shitake water with some konbu and some shitake.
13) Add all the vegetables.
14) Add equal parts of shoyu and sugar.
15) Taste!
*Note- actual amounts vary on how much you want to make and partly because I didn’t realize I should have written that down :/ Also, this is a vegetarian version my mom makes for me. It traditionally is vegetarian but my mom adds chicken breast for the rest of the family which looks good too if that’s your thing.
These are the other things we have for our New Years breakfast besides the umani:
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