Oden

Oden (jap. おでん, also お田, kanji 御田; listen^{? /i} - from Kansai dialect) is a typical Japanese dish of the winter season, usually prepared as a stew in an earthen cooking pot (donabe, 土鍋). It consists of various ingredients such as boiled egg, daikon (winter radish), konnyaku, and chikuwa cooked together in a dashi broth with konbu or katsuobushi.

Karashi can be added as a seasoning. Unlike most stews, ingredients can be added at any time and left in the dashi or a base broth for a long time, simmering for an extended period of time and steadily replenished by adding fresh stock. This has made oden a popular dish for the cold season. In certain places, however, it is also served throughout the year. For example, this dish can be found in Japanese oden shops (odenya, おでん屋), Japanese pubs (izakayas), Japanese convenience stores (konbini, コンビニ), or is offered in stationary or mobile stalls or carts. Oden is offered starting at 50 yen per cooked ingredient with dashi. Sometimes it can be taken as a snack with a skewer in hand and eaten right away.

Oden - おでん

Oden / Kantō daki (関東炊き), 2006

Cooking Hot Oden, Tokyo 2015

Source

Oden originally comes from misodengaku, or dengaku (味噌田楽 for short). This involved cooking konnyaku or Tōfu and eating it with miso. Later, the ingredients were cooked in dashi instead of miso and gained popularity.

Variants

It comes in different variations and local idiosyncrasies. In Nagoya, miso is used as a dipping sauce and the dish is called Kantō ni (jap. 関東煮, Eng. "Kantō-veggartes") there, as oden originates from the Kantō region. In the Kansai region, oden is also known by the term Kantō daki (jap. 関東炊き, also 関東煮き, "Kantō-cooked food"), which is usually prepared spicier compared to the way it is prepared in the Kantō region.

·         Different variations & ingredients of Oden

Note