November 14, 2008

My Version of Oden/私なりのおでん

I like oden, but the problem is that my children don't care for it, so I usually end up eating oden for three or four days on end. Of course, I don't like that!
私はおでんが好きですが、問題は子供たちが好きでないということです。3、4日も続けておでんを食べ続けるということになってしまいます。もちろん、そんなのは嫌です。
One day, I hit upon a good idea. "Why don't I make oden with only the ingredients I like?" It was a huge success for me, and since then, I have continued to make my version of oden.
ある日、いい考えが浮かびました。「自分が好きな具だけでおでんを作ったら?」それはすごい成功でした。それからは、自分なりのおでんを作ってきました。
Two of my favoriate oden ingredients are hard-boiled eggs and daikon.
私が好きなおでんの具はゆで卵と大根です。
You must parboil daikon in water with a handful of uncooked rice or "kome no togi jiru" (milky water resulting from washing uncooked rice) until it's 70% done.
大根は一握りのお米を入れた水か、または米のとぎ汁で、7割がた下茹でします。
You usually make shallow cross cuts on both sides of each daikon ring so that it is parboiled for a short time.
通常、各大根の両側に浅い十字の切れ込みを入れて、早く下茹でできるようにします。

This time, I used a dashi, mirin, and soy sauce ratio of 15:1:1.
Thus, 600 ml dashi, 40 ml mirin, and 40 ml sauce sauce.
A ratio of 20:1:1 is also a good one.
今回は出汁、みりん、醤油の割合を15:1:1にしました。
つまり出汁600 ml、みりん40 ml、醤油40 mlです。
20:1:1もいい割合です。

I also made chicken kara-age. I like to use an "I-wrap" bag to coat chunks of chicken with flour and potato starch mixture.
鶏のから揚げも作りました。鶏に衣をつける(小麦粉と片栗粉を合わせたもの)時は、アイラップを使うのが好きです。

This way, I can make sure that the chicken is thoroughly coated.
こうすれば、鶏にまんべんなく衣をつけられます。

Done!
完成!

4 comments:

Kake said...

Nice photos!

What difference is there between parboiling the daikon with rice starch and parboiling it in plain water? I can see it could be different but I'm having trouble visualising exactly how.

Hiroyuki said...

Thanks for your comment, kake pugh.
Parboiling daikon in "kome no togi jiru" (milky water resulting from washing uncooked rice) is a common way to remove harshness (aku in Japanese) from daikon. A small amount of uncooked rice is a poor substitute. It's the rice bran in milky water that does the trick.
Harshness removal (aku nuki in Japanese) is an important step in traditional Japanese cuisine.

Kake said...

Thank you! I'll try it next time I have daikon on hand. I wonder if it also works with things like broccoli (which my boyfriend loves but I find rather bitter).

Kake

Hiroyuki said...

Broccoli? I don't think so. I did a quick google search and found parboiling broccoli in water with flour and soaking in salt water before parboling are suggested.