Photos by Sarah B. Hodge ()
New Year’s traditions in Japan date back to at least the eighth century CE during the Nara and Heian periods, and many of these continue to be practiced to this day. It is the largest and most important holiday in the Japanese calendar and continues to be a family celebration, with many families returning to their hometowns to celebrate together.
In the days leading up to New Year’s, families work together to deep clean the entire house, put up decorations (including the shimekazari, or New Year’s wreath), and eat toshikoshi soba, or “year-crossing noodles.” Many families tune in to NHK’s “Kohaku” song contest on New Year’s Eve, which features popular Japanese entertainers split into red and white teams. At the stroke of midnight, you’ll hear temple bells across the city ring 108 times, which symbolizes ridding ourselves of Buddhism’s 108 earthly desires for the coming year.
There are many symbolic activities centered around New Year’s, beginning with seeing the first sunrise of the new year (particularly auspicious from a mountaintop) and the first temple or shrine visit of the new year. Children are given colorful envelopes containing money from relatives, and adults exchange storebought or handmade nengajo, New Year’s postcards.
Another fun New Year’s tradition is mochi pounding parties. First, freshly steamed sweet rice is dumped into a wooden mortar. Using large wooden mallets, teams work to pound the rice into sticky, stretchy perfection, which is then portioned out and shared with guests.
The traditional beverage on New Year’s is otoso, spiced sake. You can purchase bags containing a blend of medicinal herbs including Japanese pepper, ginger, and cinnamon that you soak in sake or hon-mirin (not cooking mirin, which contains salt) overnight, then serve New Year’s morning. It is served in what looks like a lacquered teapot with three nestled sake cups; the youngest member of the family gets the first sip from the largest cup, and then it goes around the table from youngest to oldest. Drinking otoso (the kanji means “defeat evil spirits”) is supposed to grant good health in the coming year.
On New Year’s day, families share osechi ryori, elaborate tiered boxes containing jewel-like dishes full of symbolism for success in the coming year. In the past, osechi ryori was prepared at home, but more recently it has become popular to order them from department stores, restaurants, grocery stores, and even convenience stores. Each osechi dish has a symbolic meaning, including longevity, fertility, good health, and prosperity. It is traditional not to cook during the first three days of the new year, so the boxes are designed to last over several days.
Making osechi ryori from scratch is a multi-day marathon of preparation and cooking, but one that I personally feel is rewarding. I first started to prepare my own osechi ryori five years ago after taking a vegan cooking class in Kamakura that included popular osechi dishes.
Common osechi ryori dishes:
Ozoni is a fortifying soup with two major variations: clear, dashi-based Tokyo-style features a rectangular mochi, while Kansai-style is miso-based with a round grilled mochi (my favorite of the two and delicious any time of year!). It’s usually the only hot item served with osechi ryori.
Pickled herring roe (kazunoko): the many eggs of pickled herring roe symbolize having many children and grandchildren. A rare and expensive delicacy even in Japan, it’s one of the most recognizable dishes in osechi ryori and is definitely an acquired taste.
Candied black soybeans (kuromame): These shiny, ink-black beans are my favorite osechi food! I like to garnish mine with edible gold flakes and serve in a hollowed-out yuzu for a great visual contrast.
Datemaki (sweet omelette) contains eggs, hanpen (fish cake) and sugar and/ or honey. It is softer and fluffier than regular Japanese omelette, baked in the oven and shaped using a special bamboo mat that gives it its distinctive jagged edges. The rolled shape is reminiscent of a scroll and represents culture and learning.
Kobumaki: representing joy, these are seaweed rolls stuffed with salmon (or burdock root for a vegetarian alternative) festively tied with dried daikon.
Nishime is a variety of vegetables simmered in a soy-based stock, and chikuzenni is similar but contains chicken.
Bright-yellow kuri kinton contains mashed sweet potatoes and chestnuts that symbolize gold and wealth (the yellow color gets a natural boost from dried gardenia pods).
In true Japanese style, many of the dishes are plays on words with similar pronunciation – Kobumaki substitutes “kobu,” or happiness, for “kombu,” or kelp. “Kuromame” sounds like “mameni hataraku,” or to work hard. The daidai (Japanese bitter orange) that tops the kagamimochi is lucky because the word “daidai” can also mean “many generations.” Tai, or sea bream, is a frequent centerpiece at weddings and holidays; “tai” is included in the phrase “medetai,” which means “to congratulate.”
Pick up a copy of Lucy Seligman’s “The Wonderful World of Osechi: Japanese New Year’s Recipes” for a handy, compact guide to the various osechi dishes with easy-to-follow recipes. (A restaurant critic, food historian, and writer, Lucy publishes the excellent Japanese food blog Thanks for the Meal and previously ran a cooking school in Japan.)
For a step-by-step visual guide on how to pack your jubako (tiered boxes) to stunning effect, check out here.
For a festive table, add red and white accents, pine branches, and use small kagami mochi or miniature kadomatsu to decorate place settings. You can also purchase special disposable chopsticks with elegant wrappers.
Be creative! Don’t be afraid to substitute with locally-available ingredients, other Japanese dishes, or even your favorite Western appetizers elegantly arranged in boxes (Western-style osechi featuring French and Italian cuisine is becoming increasingly popular). No matter how you decide to prepare osechi ryori, whether storebought, homemade, or somewhere in the middle, you’ll be sure to have a memorable (and hopefully prosperous) new year!
Kyoto-Style Zoni (recipe by Lucy Seligman, The Wonderful World of Osechi)
Serves 4
Ingredients
4 ½ cups dashi (fish stock
10 ½ oz. small taro, peeled, rubbed with salt, rinsed, and kept in a bowl of water to prevent discoloration until ready to cook
3 ½ oz. carrots, peeled and cut into thick rounds
4 fresh shiitake mushrooms (optional), stems cut, with a criss-cross incision made on the cap
2 tablespoons white miso (fermented soybean paste), or more if you like it very sweet
8 mochi cakes
Fresh mitsuba or parboiled spinach (optional)
To garnish: A few slivers of yuzu (Japanese citron) peel, a handful of dried bonito flakes
Boil the taro, carrots, and mushrooms (if you decide to use them) in the dashi stock for roughly 10 minutes, until soft enough to be pierced with a toothpick.
Take a few tablespoons of the hot stock out of the pot and combine with the miso in a small bowl. When thoroughly blended, incorporate back into the soup.
Meanwhile toast the mochi until they begin to swell. Then add them to the soup, swirl around until warmed, and turn off the heat. To serve, pour the soup into four deep bowls, making sure there are two mochi in the middle of each bowl.
At the last moment, add any greens, and top with a sliver or two of yuzu peel and a sprinkling of bonito flakes. Serve immediately.
Kohaku namasu (red and white “celebration salad,” recipe by Lucy Seligman, The Wonderful World of Osechi)
Serves 4
Ingredients
1-1/2 cups daikon radish, peeled and shredded
1/3 cup carrot*, peeled and shredded
1 teaspoon salt
To make the dressing:
3 tablespoons rice vinegar or to taste
1 teaspoon white sugar or to taste
Salt to taste
Dashes of soy sauce and mirin (sweet sake), optional
Combine daikon radish and carrot and knead lightly with salt. Let drain in a colander for 15 minutes. Rinse in water and squeeze out excess water.
Combine with dressing and taste for seasoning. If you prefer a sweeter version, cut down on the vinegar and increase the sugar. When ready to serve, drain off most of the dressing. It can be garnished with slivers of lemon peel, and or served in hollowed out lemon or yuzu halves.
*The carrot can be replaced with peeled fresh persimmon strips or dried apricot strips (or other dried fruit). This salad actually tastes better after ripening in the refrigerator (in a closed container) for a day or two.
Kuromame (Sweet black beans) (recipe by Elizabeth Andoh, Kansha)
Makes 3 to 3 1/2 cups
Ingredients
1 cup dried black soybeans
3 cups water for soaking and cooking beans
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups cold water for syrup
2 teaspoons soy sauce
Preparation
Rinse the dried beans. In a deep bowl, mix the 3 cups water and baking soda, stirring to dissolve the baking soda. Add the beans and let them soak, completely submerged, at room temperature for at least 8 hours or preferably 10 to 12 hours (if it is very warm in your kitchen, soak the beans in the refrigerator for 24 hours). As the beans soak, they will swell to several times their original size. To make sure they remain moist throughout the soaking, dampen several layers of finely woven gauze or cheesecloth and place directly on the soaking beans.
Transfer the swollen beans and what remains of their soaking water to a deep 3-quart pot. If the beans are no longer covered with water, add water as needed to cover them. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Skim away any froth with a fine-mesh skimmer and add water as needed to cover the beans by about 1 inch. Adjust the heat to maintain a steady, not-too-vigorous simmer. Place the cloth you used when soaking the beans on top of the simmering beans. The cloth will become discolored, but if it is sarashi or other sturdy muslinlike cloth, it can be reused for the same purpose several times. If you have a drop lid or other flat lid slightly smaller in diameter than the rim of the pot, place it on top of the cloth.
Cook the beans for 2 hours, checking the intensity of the heat and the water level every 15 to 20 minutes. Ideally, the beans will gently simmer in water that barely covers them. Throughout, keep the surface of the beans moist with the cloth (and drop lid).
As the beans cook, some skins may loosen and a few beans may split, but neither is a good indication of tenderness. To check for tenderness, take a bean from the pot, and when cool enough to handle comfortably, hold it between your thumb and pinkie and press gently. It should yield easily. Cooking times will vary tremendously with the age and variety of the soybean.
Continue to cook the beans, checking the water level frequently and adding water as needed to keep the beans barely covered, until they are completely tender. At this point, the beans and their cooking liquid can be immediately transferred to a glass jar, covered with the cloth, then with a tight-fitting lid, and refrigerated for up to 3 days.
Make the syrup: Combine the sugar and 1 1/2 cups water in a deep, heavy 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce the heat slightly and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is syrupy and reduced to about 1 cup. This should take about 10 minutes.
When ready to combine the syrup and beans, remove the drop lid and cloth from the beans in the saucepan or open the jar and peel back the cloth and transfer to a heavy pot. Add the syrup, replace the cloth, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer for 10 minutes, or until the beans are barely covered with the syrup.
Remove from the heat and allow the beans to cool to room temperature in the syrup. During the cooling process, the sweetness of the syrup penetrates to the core of the beans. Make sure the beans are covered with the cloth as they cool to avoid excessive wrinkling of their skins.
Peel back the cloth, add the soy sauce to the cooled syrup (it will mellow the intense sweetness), and stir to distribute well. Replace the cloth and place the pot over low heat. Bring the syrup slowly to a boil and cook for 2 minutes, then remove the pot from the heat. Allow the cloth-covered beans and syrup to cool to room temperature again. It is in this final cooling process that the flavors develop and meld.
Set the beans aside to cool completely, then transfer them with their syrup to a clean glass jar. Seal with a tight-fitting lid and refrigerate for up to 10 days. If you wish to store the beans for an extended time, use heatproof canning jars and process in a boiling-water bath as you would a jam or jelly, then store the cooled jars in the refrigerator for up to 2 months.
*If you have an Instant Pot, Nami of Just One Cookbook has a pressure cooker method that turns out delicious, picture-perfect kuromame in a fraction of the time.
