How To Make Japanese Fishcake Soup

It’s 65th day of quarantine period in our region and it’s summer at the same time. Last time, the heat index here reached 42 degrees celsius. The scorch of the sun was considered dangerous yet some of us still managed to drink our hot coffee in the morning and sip our soup during lunch time. 

Today, despite of the very hot day, I still made and craved for Japanese Fishcake Soup, or what we know as Oden Soup. This soup is a type of Japanese one-pot dishes, which consists of boiled eggs, daikon, konjac and fishcakes. Since we are under quarantine, I wasn’t able to follow the traditional ingredients. I only made Oden Soup with the stuff available in our cupboard. The authentic Oden Soup has a soy-flavored or miso-flavored broth. But since I’m feeling extra as always, I combined soy sauce and soybean paste for my broth.

1. Prepare all the ingredients needed.

• fish cakes
• egg
• cabbage
• 1/2 cup bonito flakes
• 2 cups water
• 1 tbsp soybean paste
• 1/4 cup soy sauce

2. Let’s start the base soup by making dashi. Dashi is cooking stock used in Japanese cuisine. We make this by boiling bonito flakes in two cups of water.

3. After three minutes, filter out the bonito flakes from the boiled water. Keep the broth as this is what we call the dashi.

4. Flavor dashi by stirring in soybean paste.

5. Add the fishcakes and bring this to boil.

6. Throw in the cabbage.

7. Season with soy sauce.

8. While cooking the Oden soup, boil an egg.

9. Top soup with boiled egg.

10. Your Japanese Fishcake Soup is now done and ready to be served.