Eating soba noodles on New Year’s Day is supposed to guarantee you long life. Hm. So much for ‘an apple a day’, I guess.

Anyway, I took the kids to the Japanese American National Museum where they had an ‘Oshogatsu’ New Year’s Day celebration. They showed the kids how to put together a bowl of soba noodles and then the kids got to eat it too! Not bad for a FREE museum day.

ingredients:
12-14 ounces dry soba noodles (buckwheat noodles)
dipping sauce
nori (dried seaweed)
green onions
kamaboko (fish cake)
cucumber

sauce ingredients:
2 cups dashi (soup base)
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup mirin

First make the dipping sauce, put the dashi, soy sauce and mirin in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and cool. Quite honestly – I’m not gonna be a stickler here – you can get a bottle of dippin sauce for like two dollars at the Japanese market if you are so inclined. I won’t say nothin’.

Fill a large pot with water, approx 4 – 6 cups. Bring to a boil. Add the dry soba noodles and stir – usually this take only 2-3 minutes. Drain the noodles well and rinse with cold water.

You can top the noodles with anything really. Cucumber cut small, nori cut into fine strips, sliced kamaboko. Shredded chicken or char siu works too. (See somen salad recipe.)

Put some soba into bowls, top with the toppings you like and add a small ladle of the sauce. You don’t want a soup, you just want your noodles to be wet. Aaaaand…eat!

New Year’s Day for Japanese Americans is a BIG deal. You are supposed to cook for days – lots of different good luck foods – to ensure that everyone who eats them will have a prosperous new year. Yeah but what about the poor sucker who has to make it all?? Er, that’d be me. And yeah, it’s not easy.

My friends and family all love to celebrate Oshogatsu (Japanese New Year’s Day) but no one wants to do it, of course. I enjoy taking on the the task for some reason, and every year I try to outdo the year before and see how many dishes I can make. Maybe I’m trying to hedge my bets with the ‘good luck food’, that this year will be better than last. Next year I’m scaling back, um, honest.

I always make some traditional foods, some party foods, and some just cause they taste good foods – and of course, lots and lots of desserts.

So here’s all that I made for New Year’s Day – here’s to hoping for a good 2010.

Honey Shoyu chicken wings
Root Beer pulled pork
O.G.’s flank steak
Shrimp & Bacon salad
Lumpia
Potato Salad
Spam Musubi
Somen Salad (noodles – for a long life)
Tazukuri (teriyaki fish – for a prosperous year)
kuromame (black beans – for health and success)
kurikinton (sweet potato w/chestnuts – for wealth)
gobo (burdock root – for a strong family)
edamame
kamaboko
tofu
Ozoni (traditional new year’s day soup)
Broken Glass Jello
Pink mochi
Green tea cupcakes w/mascarpone strawberry frosting
Red Velvet cupcakes

**some photos by foodlibrarian

New Years Day is coming – I’m resting up for two full days of cooking. A big part of my Japanese New Years party is mochi. Mochi is a traditional Japanese rice cake – it can be sweet – but on New Year’s it’s plain, eaten with kinako or soy sauce+sugar.

In the old days my family used to pound mochi by hand with mallets. THAT’s old skool. Me? I use the new electric plugged in machine with very minimal work on my part because I live in the future.

I recently went to thefoodlibrarian’s house where they used old school machines to make their mochi. They’ve been doing it for 40 years and they’ve got the process down – steaming the rice, extruding the mochi, cooling the mochi, forming the mochi, letting it sit in a bed of mochiko flour, and then finally packaging it. We made over 250 pounds of mochi. Unbelievable.

It was a lot of work but so worth it. There’s nothing as good as fresh mochi!

A simple, elegant, three ingredient frosting that you can use over and over again.

ingredients:
4 cups powdered sugar
3 sticks butter
3 tablespoons champagne

Luckily I had the world’s smallest bottle of champagne on hand. I’m not sure where I got this, but since I don’t drink, it was just the right size for baking.

In an electric mixer, beat the butter and the powdered sugar til combined. Gradually add the champagne, more or less, as needed. Once combined, set the mixer to high and beat for about 1 minute. Pipe or spread on cakes or cupcakes!

Mochi is fantastic stuff, it can be savory or sweet. When made into desserts it has a nice familiar ‘chew’ that let’s you know mochi is a key ingredient. These are dense little cupcakes with just a little sweetness.

ingredients:
1 (1 lb) box mochiko
1-1/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1-1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 (16 oz can) an – sweetened red bean (optional)

Mochiko can be found in most japanese markets, it’s a white flour, in a one pound box. Really useful to keep in your pantry, you can use it for a lot of other recipes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners. I get about 18 cupcakes out of this recipe.

Mix all the ingredients together, EXCEPT the an, in a bowl.

IF you are using the an, only fill the cups about 1/2 full, add a teaspoon of an, then cover with more batter. If you don’t want the an, just fill the cups 3/4 of the way full.

Bake for 30-40 minutes depending on your oven, until you get nice little slightly browned tops. Let cool on a wire rack. Now these are best, just like this, dusted with a bit of powdered sugar. However, I was making these for New Year’s Day and added a little something extra.

I made some kagami mochis out of fondant, iced the cupcakes with a lemon frosting and stuck my little fondant creations on top. They were festive for the party and were a fun nod to the tradition of New Year’s Day mochi.

I LOVE mochi. And now you can make it yourself at home!

However…I advise you to just go to the mochi store and pay 80 cents, cause this recipe is a pain in the azz, seriously. But here it is if you want to try it. It’s absolutely delicious.

Ingredients:
3-1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
¼ tsp food coloring (I prefer pink)
1 box mochiko
1 can/bag an (prepared sweet red beans)
potato starch

To start – prep a cutting board by sprinkling liberally with potato starch. Set aside.

Boil the water and the sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Add the food coloring and stir. I prefer to always make my mochi PINK, but my MIL prefers green, and since she is demo’ing this recipe, well…

Now the fun. Add the box of mochiko and stir like crazy!! I’m dead serious – if you don’t work fast you are so screwed. It gets really really hard to stir.

Once combined, dump onto your prepped cutting board.

Pull off a round piece. Flatten out, and add a dollop of an beans to the center. (You can also use peanut butter if you like). Pull up the corners around the an, closing up the pouch. Pinch closed.

Warning: This makes a TON of mochi. You better be going to a party or something, cause it’s plenty. Also, because there are so many, (just look at the picture) you will be filling these things for hours. You know what I mean? TIME CONSUMING. Just saying. But they are so soft and delicious, there is nothing better than freshly homemade mochi. MMMM…

We are big fans of mochi in this house. I am always looking for new ways to make it and new flavors. This is a very old recipe, that normally uses coconut milk, but seeing as how I am not a fan of coconut milk and rarely have it in the house. I changed it up a bit and it still tastes delicious!

1 pound mochiko (16 oz box)
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
2-3/4 cups water
1 teaspoon vanilla
food coloring – red and green

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9×13 baking dish.

In a large bowl combine the mochiko, sugar, baking powder, and vanilla. Slowly add the water, mixing and stirring with a whisk. Get a mini-sous chef to do this, and sniff it too!

Split the mixture into three bowls. Add 3 drops of green food coloring to one bowl, and 3 drops of red to another. Leave the white one as is.

Pour the green mixture into the greased baking pan. Cover with foil and bake 15 minutes.

Take out of the oven and pour the white mixture on top. Cover with foil again, and bake for 20 minnutes.

Now take it out and pour the red mixture over the second layer. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and cool – overnight. The next day, cut with a plastic knife and roll pieces in potato starch.

This recipe is easy and has a very pretty result – great for parties!

This is an old family fave we always had at parties. Total simple to make and so light that you could eat the whole tray yourself.
But don’t.

salad ingredients:
½ pkg. somen (8-10 oz), boiled
1 head romaine lettuce, chopped
char siu sliced in thins strips
2 eggs, fried crepe style & sliced in thin strips
¾ of a kamaboko sliced in strips
2 stalks green onion, chopped

dressing ingredients:
salad dressing:
1 Tablespoon sesame seeds
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 cup sesame oil
1/8 cup cooking oil
3 Tablespoons vinegar
2 Tablespoons shoyu

First boil the somen in water for only 2 minutes, don’t go over or I swear it will be glue-like. Immediately rinse it or it will continue to cook. I usually run my (clean) hand through it cause it’s still hot in the middle – see photo.

Now start cutting up all the ingredients, I suggest small “matchstick”-like pieces, they are easy to eat, but take time to cut. In case you don’t know what KAMABOKO is – it’s a “fish cake”. Don’t freak, it’s not that bad, it has virtually no taste it just adds a lot of color. You’ll sometimes see it floating in a bowl of hot Japanese noodles.

Now start laying down the ingredients.

First up, the cooled, drained noodles. Then the lettuce. (If you don’t like romaine you can just use a small head of iceberg.) Then the char siu or “barbequed pork” you can usually find this at any panda express or asian market. Don’t worry about the red dye, just eat it. Next come the lovely yellow eggs…and finally the kamaboko and green onion!

Now just mix the sauce and add it on at the last minute and you’re ready to serve!