Oden is one of the most fantastic dishes that we make as often as we can. Everybody who has been to a Japanese konbini, meaning a convenience store like 7-Eleven or Lawson, know the wonderful smell of oden, which is sold at the counter in cups to the visitors. It's a great dish for the cold winter days, and it's full of delicious and healthy ingredients. It does take some preparation time, and you can expect to have to spend around 4 hours from you start until dinner's served, so it's best suited for weekends. Here, we're making a very large amount, as we like to eat it for days, but for this amount you also need a really large pot (we use a 35 cm oval pot), so all the ingredients are indicated with half the amount below here, and that's more than enough to cook a meal for 4-5 people. All the ingredients can be changed almost endlessly, but for our oden "with the works", this is what you need:
2 sachets of Oden no moto
2 liters of water
2-3 meaty slices of osso buco (beef shank)
4-5 chicken drumsticks
1 Japanese radish
3-4 carrots
2-5 hardboiled and peeled eggs
1 pack of Aburaage
1 pack of NPH Arabiki Sausage Japanese Style
1 pack of Kibun Age Ball
1 pack of Kibun Gomoku Age
1 pack of Kibun Chikuwa Takebue
1 pack of Kibun Yasai Tempura
1 pack of Kibun Gobomaki
1 pack of Konnyaku Kuro
2-3 pieces of Kirimochi
S&B Karashi for dipping
Possibly bamboo skewers for the meat
Make sure that the frozen items are thawed first, at least the aburaage. Peel the radish and the carrots. Make small surface cuts on both sides of the sausages. Cut the radish in thick slices and make surface cuts in a cross on both sides, so they can absorb the liquid better. Cut the carrots in smaller bits:
Cut the konnyaku in 8 equally large triangles and make surface cuts on all sides. Boil them for a few minutes in water to remove a bit of the aroma:
Take them out and let them dry. Then boil all 3 pieces of aburaage in clean water for a few minutes until they are fluffy and some of the oil has been washed off:
Take them out, let them dry a bit and cool off, and then cut them in half across the short side. Cut the pieces of kirimochi so they can be distributed evenly in the aburaage pockets. Then use a piece of uncooked spaghetti, or a meat needle, to close the packets. Spaghetti is preferred, as it can be eaten:
Cut the ingredients in the Kibun packs in smaller pieces, except Age Ball and Gobomaki, as they are not suitable for cutting:
Cut the meat off the osso buco and dice it, if you want to put the bits on skewers. If not, the meat can just be used as it is, until it's tender. Here we put it on skewers:
Boil the skewers first for around 10 minutes, so the meat foam can be removed:
When no more foam appears, the skewers can be washed in cold, clean water:
Now take a large pot and add water, Oden no moto, and the skewers. Heat it at high heat until it boils, and then reduce the heat to the point where it's just simmering. Leave it for 1.5-2 hours. In case more meat foam appears, remove it. When the time is up, check that the meat is almost tender - if not, the cooking time must be extended. When the meat is almost tender, all the remaining ingredients except the Kibun products are added:
Let it simmer for around 1 hour more. Then add the remaining ingredients:
Let it simmer for 15-20 minutes, then the dish is ready to serve. Prepare plates with all the different ingredients and a good amount of karashi for dipping, and serve with freshly cooked rice. Enjoy!
In case osso buco is left out, the preparation time obviously can be reduced a lot, but we want it for the great flavour, it adds to the soup. If "the works" is a bit too much to get started with, you can adjust the ingredients any way you like, and if you're just a little bit curious about oden, we also have a small Oden set, which is suitable for 1-2 people, depending on whether you add radish and carrots or not.
