Omochi Soup: Instant Ozoni from Maruchan
Happy New Year, Everyone. 2022 Has Come!
I celebrated the new year with instant Toshikoshi Soba, and I had a homemade Ozoni soup for breakfast on the first day of the year.
As you know, these are regular things people living in Japan do on New Year’s Day. They are traditions relating to which various products are sold.
For example, limited-time edition instant soba noodles for Toshikoshi Soba start to be sold at convenience stores annually from around the beginning of December.
But I had never seen instant Ozoni soup.
Maruchan Omochi Soup Instant Ozoni
Ozoni is a bowl of mochi rice cakes cooked together with miscellaneous ingredients in a pot of dashi-rich broth. It is one of the winter dishes that represent Japan, together with Oshiruko.
The ingredients prepared for the soup vary depending on the region and the household. But the base is mostly either soy sauce or miso, and the main part is definitely mochi.
Instant mochi products are not rare in Japan, and I love instant noodles with mochi, like this.
Those instant mochi ramen and udon have been around since a long time ago, so I thought instant Ozoni soup technically would be possible.
And the other day, I finally found it at a Welcia drugstore. The instant mochi soup named “Omochi Soup (おもちすうぷ)” is from Maruchan. It is not labeled as instant Ozoni soup, but I think it is a kind of Ozoni.
Maruchan Omochi Soup (Price: 450 yen/ about 3.9 USD) consists of 3 servings of “Kinetsuki Mochi (杵つきもち: mochi pounded with a mallet called Kine)” and “Freeze-Dry Soup (フリーズドライスープ)”.
To make one serving of Ozoni, after putting the Kinetsuki Mochi rice cake and Freeze Dry Soup base in a bowl, you just pour 200 ml of boiling water and wait 3 minutes.
Using chicken, seafood, Katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes), and kombu seaweed extracts, the soy sauce-based broth is loaded with umami and is delicious!
The soup has a subtle fragrance of yuzu, which makes the overall taste elegant. The mochi and other ingredients (chicken, mitsuba, shiitake, spinach, and kamaboko) are fresh and made me quite satisfied!
Compared to instant mochi noodles, this soup is low in calories (90 kcal per serving) and recommended to women.
