A Japanese good luck dish for the new year

Every culture has at least one dish that they cook and eat for good luck, health and prosperity for the upcoming new year. For example, fish is considered good luck because it only swims in one direction — forward, like the movement of time. In Spain, they eat 12 grapes for good luck, one for each stroke at midnight for the 12 months of the year. The color red is for good fortune and happiness, so there is always a run for nice ahi for sashimi or red-colored fish on New Year’s Day in Hawaii.

Ozoni is a traditional Japanese soup served with mochi rice cakes eaten on the first day of the New Year to wish for a healthy, prosperous, happy upcoming year. When the mochi is allowed to slightly simmer in the soup, it becomes softer, and when you pick it up with a chopstick or utensil, it is stretchable and can be pulled long, representing longevity. The local produce you put into the soup represents the farmers’ bountiful harvest for the new year.

On New Year’s Day, I would always go to mom’s house and the first thing she serves is ozoni for good luck. I took the making of it and recipe for granted, since we normally closed the restaurant on that day and the eve was always busy, so it was a “day off.” I recently was asked to do a demo of making ozoni on video and, at first, I wondered why they would ask me to do it instead of my mom or someone else. It turned out to be a blessing for me because I learned what I should have learned a long time ago. I asked mom what ozoni was and meant to her, and she shared her recipe, of which there is only a concept and no measurements, like everything she cooks.

Each region in Japan has their own way of making this dish, often using what is abundant in that area. One day, I want to go to Niigata and try their ozoni, which has salmon and ikura in it (they are up north a little and have great fish and seafood). In the Kansai, or south, they use white miso. In Hawaii, I remember ozoni having hokkigai, a type of clam, which was always sold in the can and expensive, so it was always kept behind the cashier, along with the canned king crab. My mom didn’t know how or where the use of hokkigai came from. Here, most use mizuna; mom said Hokkaido sometimes didn’t have that, so they used spinach instead. Gobo and carrots are consistent, not all use daikon. Everyone does it according to their own tastes. Regional ozoni makes sense to me, simply using what’s in season and what you got around you.

New Year’s also brings another tradition — mochi pounding, which is synonymous with celebrations. Today, mom uses a mochi-making machine at home. If it is freshly made, she would place the mochi directly into the soup; it almost melts, and it’s hard to scoop out. If the mochi is frozen or slightly hardened by drying out, she puts it under the broiler. This is how I like it the best — nice, crispy and charred, like the “burnt ends” on a great barbecue brisket, and easier to scoop out of the soup.

My real favorite way of eating mochi is broiling it the same way, but after it’s puffed up and nice and crispy, I wrap it in nori and roll it around in a shoyu sugar sauce while it’s still gooey and hot.

No matter where you are, what you are eating or what you are doing on New Year’s Day, these cultural traditions are continued, to humbly ask for a happy, healthy, prosperous year filled with blessings and perhaps for a little better year than last. We all know and felt the strains of the pandemic. Then again, one of my favorite quotes is: “Can always be better, can always be worse, just appreciate what you have.”

Don’t forget to smell the pineapples, gang!

Happy Holidays! Mele Kelikimaka, Hauoli Makahiki Hou!

Chef and restaurateur Alan Wong has wowed diners around the world for decades, and is known as one of the founders of Hawaii Regional Cuisine. Find his column in Crave every first Wednesday. Currently, Wong is dba Alan Wong’s Consulting Co.