Things Japanese

Zoni recipes differ from region to region, and from one household to another. The custom of having Zoni on New Year's Day os said to have originated in the 15th century.

Rice cakes are made either as separate small, round pieces or as square cuts made from a larger, round or oblong lump of pounded rice after it has hardened.

The larger round rice cake is called Kagami-Mochi and is used as a New Year household decoration. When used for this purpose, two Kagami-Mochi differing in size, are stacked one on top of the other and offered to the ancestral altar of each family. The big rice cakes, usually about a foot in diameter, are later cut into smaller pieces and eaten by family members, who believe that the custom insures good health and good fortune for them.

Mochi for New Year celebrations is made during the final week of December. In olden times, it used to be prepared at each household. In the countryside, the whole family join in the effort even today, but in towns, professional rice pounders come around equipped with all necessary utensils such as rice-steaming frames, pestles and mortars.

Today, many confectionery shops prepare Mochi in a professional way and deliver the finished products to the customers. Children of urban families are thus denied the pleasure of watching the Mochi - making ceremony - to say nothing of the thrill of plucking off lumps from the soft, warm mass of pounded rice and kneading them into proper shape.

In a more recent development, gadget-crazy Japanese have developed compact electric Mochi-making machines for home use. The contraption is fast becoming a kichen fixture in many a home.

Contemporary children are also becoming ignorant of the romantic legend which tells of the image of a rabbit pounding Mochi in a mortar, which can be seen on the face of a full moon. The September harvest moon used to be an occation for indulging in this sort of poetic fantasy.

While the New Year holiday is a big time for Mochi eating, there are many other occations when the rice cake is prepared to celebrate happy events. These include Shinto festivals, completion of a new house, wedding receptions and the birth of a baby.

Farmers make Mochi with their new new crop of glutinous rice and dedicate the products to the neighborhood shrine as a token of gratitude.

Mochi is available around New Year holidays at food-stores, supermarkets or rice dealers.

Sumashi Zoni : Tokyo style (serves 4)

This is the simplest kind of Zoni.

For the soup:

• 4 cups of water
• 10 cm. piece of dashi konbu (kelp)
• 1 cup of bonito shavings (Katsuobushi or kezuribushi)
• 2/3 teaspoon of salt
• 2 tsp. usukuchi shoyu (thin soy sauce)
• 1 tablespoon of sake

Steep a piece of washed kelp for 3 hours in the water. Heat the water with the kelp in it until it starts boiling. Then remove the kelp. Pour half a cupt of the water on the bonito shavings. Bring it to a boil and remove it from the heat. When the shavings have sunk to the bottom of the pot, strain it. This is the dashi, basic broth for Japanese soups and dishes. Put salt, thin shoyu and sake in the heated dashi.

Ingredients:

• 4 pieces of toasted mochi (usually cut square)
• 4 pieces of naruto (fish paste stick with a red spiral pattern)
• 100gm. Komatsuna (a king of green vegetable), boiled and cut in 4cm. pieces
• 4 thin slices of Yuzu (citron) peel

In each bowl put one toasted Mochi, Naruto and Komatsuna and fill up the bowl with the hot soup. Put the Yuzu peel on top and serve.

Kinako-Mochi or Abekawa-Mochi (serve 4)

• 8 round mochi cakes
• 1 cup yellow (or green) soy bean powder
• 1 cup sugar
• a pinch of salt

Mix bean powder, sugar and salt in a bowl. Toast the Mochi cakes and soak them in very hot water for a while. Put the Mochi into the prepared powder and turn over a few times.

Fragrant Isobe-Maki (serve 4)

Japanese people toast Mochi on a wire net over the slow fire. You may use the hot-plate cooker or oven-toaster.

• 8 pieces of square cut Mochi
• 1 sheet of Nori (dried seaweed), warmed and cut into 8 pieces
• Shoyu in which to dip 8 pieces of Mochi

toast or broil the Mochi, dip them in shoyu and broil them over the fire or in the toaster again for a minute. Wrap with a piece of Nori.

Sweet Shiruko (serve 4)

For Shiruko bean paste:

• 150gm. adzuki beans
• 4 cups of water
• 3 cups of sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp. dogtooth starch dissolved in 1 tsp. water

Soak the adzuki beans for half a day. Drain and put fresh water just covering the surface of beans. Heat and when it has begun to boil, drain the beans, add enough fresh water to cover, and boil it again. Repeat the process of draining, adding fresh water, boiling and draining two more times. Pour 4 cups of fresh water over the drained beans and simmer over a low heat for two hours until the beans become tender. Add sugar and salt to taste.

Heat the Shiruko made one day before. Put dogtooth starch dissolved with water in it and stir a little.

Fill up each bowl with steaming hot Shiruko, put a toasted rice cake in the bowl, and serve.