Chicken Soup for the Unemployed's Soul~

Chicken Soup for the Unemployed's Soul..

Chicken Soup.. it's perfect for Winter! it offers help to the Unemployed's Soul by taking her mind off job hunting and concentrating on cooking a pot of delicious 'Fake Oden'!

my 'Fake Oden'..

why do i call it my 'Fake Oden'? because if you looked up 'Oden' on Wikipedia, you'll see that the ingredients i used are quite different to the ones that the Japanese will use.. for instance, boiled eggs, daikon radish, konnyaku (yam cake) and chikuwa (fish cakes).. these ingredients can also be confirmed by About.com and Miyuki!

i used only onions, carrots, potatoes and chicken drumsticks! wahaha.. these are actually ingredients for Japanese Curry but because they are so easy to get, i did a copy cat! i'm pretty sure Miyuki, Manami, Yayoi, Satomi, Shige-san and all other Japanese will shake their heads in misery if they found out about my 'Fake Oden'!

the real Oden Mix!

Japanese food first came into my Mum's kitchen many years ago when she got to know a friend through playing golf.. Auntie Irene married a Japanese man and moved to Japan.. she lived there for 13 years before going back to Malaysia for good with her husband.. i remembered my first Japanese Curry cooked by Auntie Irene at her house in Batu Pahat.. it was cooked with Ostrich Meat, mind you! i dont think that's entirely Japanese.. but it tasted super duper yum!

Oden was another dish that Auntie Irene taught my Mum to cook.. but it's not easy to get Japanese ingredients in the small town of Yong Peng.. so Mum made some changes here and there and just use Oden as a soup base.. and when i came to Australia for the first time, i brought along packets of Oden for quick and easy meals.. i made more replacements to the ingredients to make it even more simple.. so far, it has not failed yet.. =)