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:

  1. 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.

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  2. 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.

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  3. 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

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  4. 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.

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