Year-End Oden Banquet ― 2023/12/30
Oden is a very special dish for me to cook in many ways. Firstly, the cooking process is really complicated. It starts with shaving Katsuo-bushi for the cooking liquid. In fact, the preparation of the dashi begins the night before, when I soak a generous piece of dried kombu and some tiny dried sardines in a bottle of cold water. Meanwhile, prepare the other ingredients: thickly sliced pieces of daikon are boiled until they become slightly tender, the bit-sized shin of beef needs to be boiled twice, the konnyaku needs to be finely slashed, cut into four triangles, rubbed with salt, boiled for about five minutes, and dry-fried to remove as much as liquid as possible, and lightly boil other deep-fried ingredient. And then cook the prepared items separately: the firmer ones in a shallow pan over a direct heat (picture above), while the more fragile ingredients, such as potatoes and something that needs slower cooking process, such as boiled egg and shin of beef in a slow cooker.
This time it took me a whole morning, about three hours to do it all.
The second reason I rarely cook oden is that it can be quite expensive. If I prefer less greasy fried items, or fishcakes with a less fishy smell, a portion of oden could be as expensive as or more expensive than a other decent home cooking. For example, if you add up a piece of good fried fishcake (100 yen) *3, an egg (30 yen), ganmodoki (120 yen), shin of beef (198 yen per 100 grams ) *40 grams, a quarter of not-so-bad konnyaku (40 yen), a piece of potato and daikon (about 100 yen in subtotal), you can come up with 670 yen, which is just the cost of the ingredients. We also need seasonings, dashi, heating. And to make a dinner, we still need some side dishes. We can easily spend over 1000 yen per person for a home meal, which is nothing but special to me.
Thirdly, it has become increasingly difficult to get decent oden ingredients around my area. I used to shop at Kobayashi Kamaboko store in Nishijin, and Uoka in Meinohama, but the former store has closed down. Although its products can be purchased at a local Bon Repas, the selection is limited. And the latter has been making its fishcakes smaller and smaller in recent years.
As a result, this became the very first oden in my household this year. The leftover oden was quickly packed, separated between the cooking liquid and the solid ingredients, and went to the fridge as soon as it was cool enough.
None of this precious food can go to waste.
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