What I Ate Traditional Japanese Foods for This New Year's Holidays and Our New Year's Day Hike

Monday, January 2, 2023

What I Ate Traditional Japanese Foods for This New Year's Holidays and Our New Year's Day Hike

New Year's holidays, which are called oshogatsu (お正月) in Japanese, are the most important holidays for Japanese people. Today, I'm going to share with you what I ate this New Year's holidays.

Traditional Japanese Food for New Year's Eve

It's a Japanese traditional that osoji (大掃除), big cleaning, is done in late December before the New Year comes. Indeed, my husband and I did osoji all day long on New Year's Eve. The last meal before the New Year came was toshikoshi soba. It's a Japanese traditional to eat soba noodles, which are called toshikoshi soba (年越しそば, 年越し蕎麦).

Toshikoshi Soba (年越し蕎麦)

Toshikoshi Soba

This time, my husband cooked chicken soba noodles. He topped soba noodles with Tyson Grilled & Ready Fully Cooked Southwest Grilled Chicken Breast Strips because it's easier. Dried soba noodles were one we purchased in Japan about a month ago. 😉

Traditional Japanese Foods for New Year

Japanese New Year (Shogatsu) runs January 1 through January 7 (O-shogatsu, 大正月) or January 15 (Ko-shogatsu, 小正月). Specially, January 1 through January 3 is called sanganichi (三が日), and people visit shrines and meet families and relatives for the first time in the year and enjoy Japanese traditional New Year's foods.

Osechi (おせち料理)

During New Year's holiday, people in Japan eat Osechi (おせち), Osechi Ryori (おせち料理). Osechi is a collection of lucky foods such as chikuzenni, kuromame, kamaboko and so on.

Osechi

Zoni (雑煮), Mochi Soup
During New Year's holiday, it's a Japanese traditional to eat mochi. Specially, mochi soup which is called zoni (雑煮) or ozoni (お雑煮) is commonly eaten in Japan during New Year's holiday.

Zoni

This year, my husband cooked this zoni for New Year's soup. If you are interested in how to cook zoni, you can check out my previous entry, How to Cook Zoni, Japanese Mochi Soup for New Year's Day.

Chikuzenni (筑前煮), Nishime (煮しめ)

Chikuzenni

I cooked this chikuzenni as our Osechi. I used some vegetable, konjack and chicken. If you are interested in how to cook chikuzenni, you can check out my previous entry, How to Cook Chikuzenni, Japanese Simmered Chicken and Vegetables.

Kuromame (黒豆), Sweetened Japanese Black Beans

Kuromame

I cooked this kuromame (黒豆), sweetened black beans, as our Osechi for my first time. I thought that it would be difficult, but it was easier than I expected. However, it took about four hours. I will write about kuromame recipe in my future entry.

It's not a traditional Japanese New Year's food, but I made a lot of taiyaki on January 1st!

It's because tai (鯛) is a lucky fish! Tai (鯛, たい) means a red snapper, sea bream, in Japanese. People in Japan eat a broiled red snapper on happy events such as on a wedding day, baby's 100th day, New Year's day and etc. Auspicious is called medetai (めでたい) in Japanese. "Tai ha medetai (鯛はめでたい)" means tai is a good luck fish. That's why taiyaki is a kind of a good luck fish-shaped cake and can be eaten all year round.

Taiyaki

A traditional taiyaki has sweetened azuki bean pastes. If you are interested in how to make taiyaki, you can check out my previous entry, How to Make Perfect Taiyaki, Japanese Fish-Shaped Cake .　

Our New Year's Day Hike!

San Gabriel River Bike Trail

It was raining on New Year's Eve all day long. It finally stopped raining in the early morning on January 1st. That's why we decided to hike in Orange County. We finally chose San Gabriel River trail for our first hike of 2023 because we hoped that we could see sea turtles in the river. Because of after storm, it was very windy and cold, and we were not able to find sea turtles this time unlike our previous hike. You can also check out my previous entry, Green Sea Turtles in San Gabriel River - Seal Beach / Long Beach .