Hot pot & soups
Osaka Shiromiso Zoni
Osaka shiromiso zoni — round mochi in a white miso soup with root vegetables
Round mochi simmers with sliced daikon, carrot, and taro in a white miso soup for New Year's. The round-cut vegetables are said to carry wishes for harmony, and many households switch to a soy-based soup on the second day — a custom framed as fitting for a city that prizes never growing 'bored.'
- Origin: Osaka
- About 400 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
This New Year's zoni sets round mochi and rounds of daikon, carrot, and taro in a white-miso broth. The round-cut ingredients, without sharp corners, are said to be a good-luck charm for a harmonious year, and the miso's gentle sweetness wraps around every ingredient. Around New Year's, Osaka supermarkets stock thin, small zoni daikon and kintoki carrots sized just right for slicing into rounds, and kintoki carrot is said to be a traditional vegetable long grown in Osaka too.
How it's made
Sliced daikon, carrot, and peeled taro are simmered in dashi, then white miso is stirred in. Round mochi is added and simmered briefly before serving, it's said. There's a custom of serving it white-miso style on New Year's Day and switching to a clear soy-based soup the second day, it's said. Using round ingredients is said to be a way of wishing for a harmonious year without sharp corners.
Why it took this shape
Zoni is said to have already been served as festive fare among the upper classes by the Muromachi period, spreading to commoners by the Edo era, it's said. The idea of choosing round ingredients to keep the year free of sharp edges took hold, and in Osaka, a city known for commerce, changing the flavor on the second day is said to be a custom meant to keep things from growing stale. It's still made fresh in households every New Year's today, passed down and carried on generation after generation, it's said.
Before you go
- Foods to look for in winterA guide to foods often seen in Japan around winter — nabe hot pot, fugu, oysters, crab, year-end soba, and osechi — with rough pointers for finding them.
- Osechi and zoni for the New YearA guide to the meaning behind osechi's tiered boxes, the regional differences in zoni (square vs. round mochi, clear vs. miso broth), and the nanakusa-gayu custom.
- Setsubun: ehomaki and lucky beansA guide to ehomaki, the uncut sushi roll said to be eaten facing a lucky direction on Setsubun, and to mamemaki, the bean-throwing custom with roasted lucky beans.
Dishes in the same style
- Aichi Miso OdenA pot of sweet red miso sits in the center of the simmering pot, and daikon, tofu, and other ingredients simmered in dashi are dipped into it before eating. While soy-based Kanto-style oden spread in Edo, Aichi is said to have settled on dipping in soybean miso instead.
- Aichi ZoniSquare mochi and mochina, a traditional Owari green, are served in a plain clear broth for New Year — a notably simple zoni. It's speculated that using miso so often in daily cooking is exactly why a clear broth is chosen for this festive occasion, deliberately leaving miso out.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Kyoto Shiromiso ZoniRound mochi, kashira-imo taro, and daikon simmer in a broth loosened with white miso — said to date to Heian-era Kyoto — for New Year's zoni. The round mochi wishes for harmony, the taro for success, the daikon for a long, round life, and some households add red kintoki carrot too.
- Renkon MochiRed and white sticky rice is packed into the holes of Kadoma renkon, a local lotus root, and steamed — a dish for celebrations. The root's holes are said to make it a lucky charm for 'seeing what lies ahead,' and slices are eaten with soybean flour, sweet bean paste, or mustard soy sauce.
Also from Osaka
- AkanekoSteamed sticky rice pounded with wheat flour is dusted with sugar and soybean flour — also called hangesho mochi, for the rite marking the end of rice planting. The whole-ground wheat flour once left the mochi brownish, said to resemble a cat's round back and give the dish its name.
- BatteraThin slices of vinegared mackerel and white kelp sheet are pressed together in a wooden mold. A sushi shop in Minami-Senba is said to have devised it in 1891, naming it after the Portuguese word for a small boat because the original version, made with konoshiro, resembled one.
- Beni Shoga TenThin slices of red ginger, pickled in plum vinegar, are battered and deep-fried. The plum vinegar's tang and the ginger's bite are said to suit drinks well, and the fritter appears as a one-sen tempura in Sakunosuke Oda's 1940 novella 'Meoto Zenzai,' evidence of how long it has fed ordinary Osakans.
- Beni-zuiki to Aburaage no TaitanBeni-zuiki, reddish taro leaf-stalks that can grow to 2 meters tall, is soaked in vinegared water to remove its bitterness, then simmered with fried tofu in dashi and soy sauce — a summer obanzai dish. Its spongy cross-section is said to soak up flavor well, and it has been named a Naniwa specialty product.
- Dote YakiParboiled beef tendon simmers for a long time against a bank of miso and mirin piled around the pan's edge like a levee, or dote. Rich and sweet-savory, it pairs well with drinks and is said to be a beloved downtown Osaka food, with many shops concentrated in the Shinsekai district.
- EhomakiA thick sushi roll eaten whole and in silence while facing the year's auspicious direction on Setsubun, the last day of winter. Its origin is not settled, but theories passed down include a game among the geisha quarters and a prayer for prosperity by Osaka's Semba merchant houses.