As temperatures dip down to single digits, it's finally feeling like winter. In terms of Japan’s seasonal culinary calendar, that means one thing: oden.
In poll after poll taken by various Japanese newspapers, magazines, social media channels and convenience store chains, this warming assortment of slowly simmered morsels is the top-ranking comfort food for blustery winter nights. Regional versions of oden abound — some simmered in a lightly seasoned, amber-colored stock; others in a deeply burnished bronze broth — but most versions of oden include a variety of sausage-like dumplings fashioned from surimi (fish and other seafood ground to a paste). Some of these surimi bits are steamed, while others are fried or grilled. In addition to oden’s seafood items, tofu and both terrestrial and marine vegetables have their place in the broth.
At street stalls and in izakaya (traditional Japanese pubs), oden is most often nibbled while quaffing beer or sipping sake. At home, plain rice is often served on the side with an assortment of tsukemono (pickled vegetables).
The single-most adored oden item? Super tender wheels or half-moon chunks of daikon imbued with briny, smoky flavor from the simmering broth. As with other root vegetables, though, it can take some work getting daikon to the point where it can deeply absorb flavorful broth. The key is to first boil them in togi-jiru, the run-off water from washing rice. I call this technique “tender-prepping,” and it’s one of many bits of Japanese granny wisdom that Washoku Essentials has to offer.
Although it takes about 45 minutes to cook your daikon until it’s properly tender and ready to soak up oden’s telltale flavors, tender-prepping can be done a full day (or two) in advance of cooking and serving. If you prefer to cook both at the same time, you can make your dashi stock on a separate stovetop burner and assemble the seasoned broth. Everything can be set aside, refrigerated, for use the following day.
There are many ready-made oden broths on the market, but most include additives like chemical stabilizers and flavor enhancers that I prefer to avoid. Making your own broth gives you greater latitude in seasoning, especially since the premade broths I’ve sampled have been either too sweet or too salty. In this recipe, I give you a choice: a typical Kanto-style broth, which is a bit on the sweet side with both sugar and mirin (sweet cooking sake) to balance two kinds of soy sauce, and Kansai-style, which is robustly colored and seasoned with the ubiquitous combination of sugar, sake and soy. Either way, these broths serve as an excellent point of reference for creating your own.
Finally, because oden is one of those dishes that tastes great reheated, I recommend doubling quantities so you can set aside some to warm up on a busy day later in the week.
Daikon oden
Serves 4
For tender-prepped vegetables:
- 2-3 cups togi-jiru
- 4 daikon wheels, each about 50 grams
- 8 rounds of chubby carrot, each about 25 grams
For Kanto-style broth:
- 1 liter dashi stock (to make your own, check this recipe)
- 1 tablespoon sake
- 2 tablespoons mirin
- 1 teaspoon light-colored shoyu
- 1 tablespoon regular shoyu
Or
For Kansai-style broth:
- 1 liter dashi stock
- 2 tablespoons sake
- 1½ tablespoons sugar
- 3 tablespoons regular shoyu
For oden:
- 2 chikuwa (cylindrical, grilled fish sausages with a hole in the middle), each sliced in half or thirds on the diagonal
- 4 satsuma-age (deep-fried ground fish patties), sliced in half
- 300-400 grams tofu (firm momen, yaki-dofu or both), drained of packaging liquid and cut into eight pieces
- 2 ganmo (vegan dumplings made from tofu and minced vegetables and bound with grated yamaimo yam), cut each in half or quarters
- 1-2 packages itokon (small bundles of konnyaku noodles), drained of packaging liquid
- Nama kombu (fresh edible kelp), rinsed, cut and tied into knots (a 45-centimeter length of kombu will make four knots)
Removing the peel from root vegetables allows them to readily absorb the flavor of the dashi they will simmer in. Broadly peel the daikon and carrot, katsura-muki style. This classic washoku way of cutting requires patience, and practice, but yields more attractive results than a peeler. Katsura-muki allows you to make a bonus dish from the broad peel removed by this technique.
In order to successfully cut your vegetables katsura-muki style, your knife must be sharp and have a broad blade — 4- to 5-centimeters wide and about 16-centimeters long is best for practicing. The goal is to produce a long, continuous sheet from your vegetable. Skilled chefs can create gossamer-thin peels, but for this recipe (and most home cooking) a thickness of ¼ centimeter thickness is fine (and, if you will be making traditional kinpira stir-fry, the thicker peels are tastier).
To start, hold your knife in your dominant hand with your fingers curled around the handle. In your non-dominant hand, hold the daikon with your thumb pointing toward your other hand. Slide the knife blade under the daikon peel, keeping your thumb on top of the peel. Guide the knife blade up and down as you rotate the daikon into the knife blade — just be sure to keep both thumbs on top of the peel.
Continue peeling with up-and-down motions with your dominant hand while rotating the daikon into the knife blade. The daikon should be coming off in a continuous peel, which can be set aside, thinly slivered and cooked the same way as burdock root in kinpira.
Cut each wheel of daikon in half to make eight half-moon chunks.
Place the daikon and carrot rounds in a pan large enough to hold them in a single layer. Pour in your togi-jiru to barely cover. If need be, add water to make up the necessary volume. Using an otoshi-buta (drop lid) will speed the tenderizing process, and both top and bottom surfaces of the vegetables will cook evenly without flipping — making your final dish look better.
Over medium heat, bring the togi-jiru mix to a boil. Adjust heat as needed to maintain a steady but not vigorous simmer. Cook for eight to 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the thickest section of a vegetable meets little resistance.
Allow the vegetables to cool, covered in the togi-jiru, until they reach a temperature that you can comfortably handle. Lift the pieces from the pot and quickly rinse to remove togi-jiru residue. Avoid soaking the vegetable pieces in water as this impairs their ability to absorb seasoned dashi stock later.
Set aside the tender-prepped vegetables to finish cooking later. They can be refrigerated in a lidded container, preferably covered with dashi stock, for up to 24 hours.
Assembling the oden
Gather your various oden items — chikuwa, satsuma-age, tofu, ganmo, itokon and nama kombu — and pack them snugly in a wide, shallow pot. You can cluster your items all together, but there are special inserts called shikiri ita (dividers with holes) that allow simmering liquid to move freely from one compartment of a divided pot to the other. Sold for just a few hundred yen online and in housewares sections of large department stores, these dividers transform an ordinary pot into an oden nabe (pot used specially for oden).
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Pour in just enough broth (Kanto-style or Kansai-style) to barely cover the items. Place the pot over low heat and simmer, covered, for at least 15 minutes — preferably 30 minutes or more. Throughout, check the liquid levels to prevent scorching. If need be, add a bit of water or more dashi stock.
Allow the contents of the pot to cool down to room temperature (it is during this stage of cooking that the broth is absorbed into the various items). This initial cooking can be done far in advance (12 to 24 hours ahead). Cover and refrigerate until ready to complete cooking and eating.
Just before serving, reheat slowly until the stock is barely simmering. Serve with karashi mustard.
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