Traditional New Year dish

お節料理

Like Christmas in Norway, for many people new year is a family-gathering event in Japan.

Traditional Japanese new year dish is an important part of this occasion.

Probably you´ve heard of `O-mochi (sticky rice cake)´ that sends quite a few people to hospital every new year days because they clog the throat with the o-mochi?  It´s my husband´s favourite story when he explains about this sticky substance!

But it´s very tasty and I don´t know anyone who dislike it in Japan!

Recently I was a little tired of baking all the `julekaker´ (Although I love them a lot and am quite good at it!)

Then I suddenly come up with an idea to make a Japanese new year dish for family and fiends BEFORE Christmas.

I didn´t whether it´s possible to make traditional Japanese dishes in Norway, but here we go, this is the result and I´m very satisfied.  Except kuromame (cooked black beans) and thick konbu (kelp), I obtained the ingredients in Oslo.  So year 2015 I´d like to update all the recipes if someone wants to try.

They will be delivered to my dear friends.

Hope they enjoyed them :-)

I wish you a great holiday season and a happy new year!

God jul og godt nyttår!

Deep-fried aubergine with miso sauce

茄子田楽

This miso sauce is easy to make and very versatile to any sort of food.

I like to combine the sauce with zucchini, figs, tofu or aubergine as here.

Serves 4

Vegetable oil for deep-frying

1 aubergine

1ss toasted white poppy seeds (optional)

MISO SAUCE

80 g miso paste (red or white)

1-2ss sugar

2ts mirin

2ts water

1 Combine all the miso sauce ingredients in a pot.

Over low heat, stir until the sauce thickened the consistency.

(NB: it´s easy to burn.  Stir constantly!)

2 Pour vegetable oil to a pan about 1 cm, then preheat.

3 Cut the stems off the aubergine.  Slice into 2 cm rounds.

Piece with a fork in several places or use knife if you prefer.

4 Deep-fry the aubergine until tender.

(They won´t be crisp)

5 Drain the aubergine well then top with the sauce,

sprinkle with the poppy seeds.

Cooked minced chicken with rice in lunch box

鶏そぼろ弁当

Minced chicken meat cooked in sake, soya & sugar is a classic topping on white steamed rice.
With scrambled egg and cooked green vegetable a Japanese tricolour lunch box is ready to go!

Serves 4

200g minced chicken meat

1/2dl sake

2ss sugar

2ss soya sauce

1/2ts grated ginger

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1ss sugar

1 pinch of salt 

50g green beans

4 bowls (ca. 500g) cooked rice

1 Cook the chicken meat, sake and 2ss sugar in a pan.

Stir constantly by using 4-5 chopsticks.

Add the soya sauce and ginger then simmer further until the meat is well cooked.

2 Make scrambled egg.  Add 1ss sugar to lightly beaten eggs then cook.

Stir constantly by using 4-5 chopsticks.

3 Boil the beans in lightly salted water until just tender (ca. 2 mins).

Drain and cool under cold running water.

Cut in 0.5cm length.

4 Divide the rice among 4 lunch boxes (or rice bowls, if you prefer),

and top each with the chicken, scrambled egg and green beans.

Sweet-vinegared ginger goes very well this dish.

Enjoy!