Kansai White Miso New Year Soup (上方雑煮, Kamigata Ozōni)

Round mochi is the first instruction in Kamigata ozōni. It tells you not to chase toast or smoke, but to boil the rice cake until it softens and rests quietly in sweet white miso. The bowl appears at New Year, so people make it sound solemn. In the hand, it is gentler than that: dashi, winter roots, white miso, mochi.

The detail that decides it is heat. White miso has a soft sweetness that turns dull and salty if it boils, so we cook the satoimo, daikon, and carrot first, then dissolve the miso off the boil. This is honmono, the real thing, in its plain clothes: heat held back so the broth stays pale, rounded, and kind, with konbu and katsuobushi doing their work underneath.

Choose the vegetables as though they have to stand in a nearly bare room, because they do. Firm satoimo, juicy daikon, a carrot with real sweetness, all cut round if you can. A flower cutter is pleasant, but a plain circle is already speaking the language of the dish. Mochi, root, bowl, the year beginning again: leave it room.