Authentic Japanese Cooking: New Year’s Cuisine Part 1

The first of two episodes where we introduce Osechi-ryori, the special cooking for celebrating the new year in Japan. We’ll be focusing on O-zoni soup and kurikinton, two of the many different Osechi-ryori dishes. Using a carefully prepared and richly flavorful dashi stock as a base, we’ll be adding daikon radish and carrot cut into auspicious turtle and crane shapes to pray for a long life, as well as other ingredients for a colorful dish full of good luck for the new year. We’ll also learn about regional O-zoni variations like different dashi or differently shaped mochi. Finally, we’ll also be preparing an indispensable Osechi-ryori dessert, kurikinton, made with fresh cream and egg yolks, for a recipe that has a slightly more “international” flavor than usual.