Thanksgiving with a dash of Japanese New Year flavour

chikuzenni (vegetables boiled in a soy-based sauce)

Last week we drove out to the East coast for the second time in as many weeks for Thanksgiving with my relatives. Last year, Sawa made some delicious ratatouille, and she was thinking about doing something like that again this year until her mum suggested she try a Japanese dish to add something a little different to the mix.

We've always thought that the closest thing in Japan to Thanksgiving is New Year's. They're both arguably the best holiday of the year because they both involve:
1) All the family getting together
2) Eating till you can't stand up
3) Falling asleep watching TV
4) Waking up and repeating for a couple days



Of course, the Japanese version features much more vegetables on the plate and funny singing competitions on TV, with much less pie and funny tackling competitions. But we thought bringing New Year's dishes full of delicious vegetables would add nicely to the feast. They also had the benefit of being gluten-free as long as we used gluten-free soy sauce.

When I say we, of course, I mean Sawa. She made chikuzenni , kuriokowa, and some traditional pumpkin pie with a walnut streusel topping (since, as mentioned, Japanese New Years traditionally lacks pie). My contribution was to eat the aforementioned items, say "mmm, tastes good!", and then fall asleep.

kuriokowa (glutinous mochi rice with chestnuts, walnuts and brown sugar)

Pumpkin pie with walnut topping and fresh whipped cream

Surprisingly enough, this all went splendidly with deep-fried turkey.