PREPARATION

June, Kimo and Dan just got back from the Big Apple, taping 3 shows with Esquire magazine chef of the year brother Ming Tsai on the Food Network. His show is called East Meets West (a recent Emmy winner!), and Hiroshima does the theme and music cues for it. Not only did June, Kimo and Dan play music 'live' on the show, but on one show, they actually cooked with Chef Ming!!!!! Here's one of the recipes a traditional Japanese New Year's Soup called Ozoni:

What to Do
Make chicken stock by cooking chicken breasts in water not too much above the chicken. Add about 1 T salt. Cook until boil then lower heat and cook for 45-60 mins. (Too much water, not enough flavor...+ the more you cook the more flavor.) While making stock, wash & drain all vegetables. Peel and carrots and daikon then cut into 2 inch strips. Cut mizuna into 2 strips. Slice fairly thin the kamaboko. Put a few mochi into toaster and toast until puffy.

Remove chicken from broth. While chicken is cooling, strain the soup in either cheese cloth or some kind of cloth to strain to a clean pot. Add the carrots and daikon according to amount of stock and cook until tender. (Shred some of the chicken and add to broth.) Check flavor and add salt if needed.

Just before serving, cook mizuna in soup just to parboil. Put toasted mochi in a bowl, pour the soup over mochi, then put several slices of kamaboko on top and serve!