my wagashi chronicles

moon-viewing festival (more rabbit manju)

2011-09-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

The Tsuki-mi (moon viewing) celebration is fast approaching, and while debating whether to bother making a pile of the traditional tsuki-mi dango (moon viewing dumplings), I came across these adorable rabbit-shaped steamed manju being promoted as an alternative treat for the occasion. In the Japanese mind, rabbits are closely associated with the moon, as it is not a man's face, but a rabbit pounding mochi that we see when we look up at the full moon on a clear autumn evening.

I know we covered rabbit confections aplenty in honor of the year of the rabbit, but the moon viewing festival is another thing entirely, and rabbit manju is a nice change from the simple, round (i.e. moon-shaped) mochi dumplings that are usually displayed (and eaten) on this occasion. I ordered the rabbit manju shown here from a wagashi confectionery called Piyonta in Kyoto. The box that arrived contained six manju, two each of three different flavors: "plain," "chocolate," and "green tea."

According to my trusty tongue (and the ingredients list printed on the box), the outer layer of these manju is made with wheat flour. The "plain" flavor has a creamy tan-colored outer shell and creamy tan-colored filling flecked with chopped chestnuts and red azuki beans. The "chocolate" flavor has a dark brown outer shell and a light-brown filling flecked with almonds and chocolate. The "green tea" flavor has a green outer shell and smooth green filling, each colored and flavored with powdered green tea (matcha). In each case, and regardless of the color, the filling is White bean An-based.

Further complexity of flavor and a gentle sweetness result from the addition of egg yolk, butter, and sweetened condensed milk, which gives it the familiar fragrance and flavor of Western-style cakes and cookies. I've noticed that sweetened condensed milk pops up more and more often in wagashi ingredients these days.

Someday I'll try to reproduce this wheat-flour manju and post a recipe, but not today. I lost most of the photos I took, and didn't realize it until the manju were eaten up and it was too late to take more photos. Sorry about that. By the way, these manju were delicious! : )

While you're here, check out the rice-flour based bunny manju and bunny mochi recipes too!

salt-preserved cherry leaves

2011-05-11T02:35:00.000-07:00

Ingredients:

tender leaves of a sakura cherry tree, (preferably yae-zakura)..... 50 grams
salt......10 grams (20% of the weight of the leaves)
white plum vinegar...... 50 cc

Directions:

1. Pick the sakura cherry leaves while they are still young and tender (large ones work best) along with about 1~2 cm of their stems, and clean them well by rinsing in water.

2. Drain the leaves, and pat them dry. Place them in a sieve and pour boiling water over them.

3. Quickly place the leaves in very cold water to prevent further cooking or change in color.

4. Drain the leaves again and remove excess moisture by patting dry or using one of those plastic spinners you use to remove excess moisture from lettuce leaves.

5. Lay the leaves out on paper towels or a tray and separate them into groups of similar-sized leaves.

6. Sprinkle 1/3 of your salt over the bottom of a glass cake pan (or round plastic storage container). Divide up the leaves into groups of ten leaves of roughly the same size, and stack them on top of each other in the same direction. Lay the stacks in the pan on top of the salt, preferably without overlapping one stack with another.

7. Sprinkle the rest of the salt over the top of the leaves, and pour the white plum vinegar around and in between the stacks of leaves.

8. Place plastic wrap over the leaves. Then lay a flat lid or dish over the wrap, and something heavy, like a clean brick or some cans of soda, on top of the flat lid/dish.

9. After two or three days, each stack of leaves can be placed in a small freezer bag (press out the excess air). Do not remove the salt at this time. The leaves can be stored in the refrigerator or freezer this way for up to two years.

10. Soak the leaves to get rid of excess salt before using them in a recipe. When I use the leaves for sakura mochi, I like them to retain a slight saltiness.

NOTE: If you can't get hold of white plum vinegar, you can dissolve 50~60 grams of salt in 100 cc of lukewarm water and pour that over the leaves in place of steps 6 and 7.

salt-preserved cherry blossoms

2011-03-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

I love using salt-preserved cherry leaves and blossoms in my spring desserts. Check out my sakura mochi recipe to see the most common way the leaves are used. My sakura cheesecake recipe uses both leaves and blossoms. If you do not live where these can be purchased, you might try making them yourself, though it is a lot of trouble. Today I am posting directions for salt-preserving the blossoms. I will post directions for preserving the leaves in my next post.

Please keep in mind these two things: (1) Most of the sakura fragrance and flavor is in the leaves, so use the leaves for cooking, and the blossoms mainly for decoration or to add very slight fragrance to green tea. (2) Try to use the deep pink blossoms of the Yae-zakura tree. These tend to bloom later than other varieties of sakura, and have large, multi-layered petals. Choose a tree that is far from the exhaust fumes of motorized traffic.

Ingredients:
yae-zakura blossoms..........200 grams
salt (first stage)..........50 grams
ume-zu (plum vinegar, either white or pink will do)..........4 Tablespoons
salt (second stage)..........50 grams

Directions:
1. Remove the blossoms from the branch at the point they are connected to it, stem and all. Rinse them gently, but thoroughly, in cold water. Drain the water, and pat the flowers dry using paper towels.

2. Toss the first 50 grams of salt with the blossoms and place the salted flowers in a small bowl. Place a weight (400 grams) over the flowers, cover all with plastic wrap, and set aside overnight. This will draw out the excess water from the flowers.

3. Next day, gently squeeze out the water from the flowers, then sprinkle them with the plum vinegar. Place a weight (this time only 100 grams) over the flowers, cover all with plastic wrap, and let sit for three days.

4. Spread the flowers (still with their stems) over a paper towel-lined, woven bamboo tray so that no flower overlaps with another. Place the tray in a dry, shady place for three days.

5. Toss the dried flowers with the second 50 grams of salt, and store them in a small, clean, screw top jar to keep at room temperature for future use. Or you can keep the plum vinegar-steeped flowers from step #3 in the refrigerator and eat them like pickles.

More detail and photographs of the procedure can be found at this Japanese site.

ebi senbei (shrimp-flavored rice crackers)

2011-02-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

My favorite version of homemade ebi senbei uses all mochi (glutinous) rice, is flavored with dried shrimp, and fried in oil to become puffy and crispy. The basic recipe can be adapted for different flavors and cooking methods. It's a great way to use leftover rice.

ingredients:
cooked rice (I use mochi rice, or a mixture of regular rice and mochi rice)....120 grams
sakura ebi (dried tiny pink shrimp)....3 tablespoons
a little bit of salt, oil

directions:
1. place cooked rice in a suribachi (ribbed mortar) and grind it with a surikogi (wooden pestle) till the rice is partly mashed. Add shrimp and grind a bit more, mixing shrimp into the rice.

2. Using a wet spoon, divide the partially mashed rice into 8 ~ 10 roughly equal portions. Lay them on a piece of waxed paper or plastic wrap that is about the size of your microwave tray. Place another piece of plastic wrap over the rice and press with your hand to flatten each portion to a tenth-of-an-inch thickness.

3. Remove the top layer of plastic wrap. Sprinkle the tops of the rice portions with a little salt. Cook in microwave for about 3 minutes at 500 watts to evaporate excess moisture.

4. Replace the top layer of plastic wrap over the rice and flip it over, so that the bottom layer of wrap (or wax paper) is on top. Remove the layer that is now on top, salt the rice once again, and cook in microwave for 2 ~3 more minutes.

5. Let the rice cool to room temperature, then cook the portions in hot oil for one minute on each side, or till the crackers are crispy and light brown. Remove from oil and drain in a wire net or on paper towels till cooled. The result is a light, air-filled, crispy senbei.

The senbei will cook most evenly and quickly if excess moisture has evaporated from the rice portions by sufficient microwaving and being left on the counter to air-cool. If the rice has been flattened unevenly, it will cook unevenly. Experiment to find out how much microwaving, and how much frying, will result in the kind of sembei you prefer.

Variations:
A. Instead of shrimp, try mixing kizami-konbu (finely shredded kelp seaweed) into the rice.
B. Instead of frying the senbei in oil, grill it on a wire net over a gas fire or hot coals. Grilling results in harder sembei that has a dry crispiness some people prefer. Grilling may result in some burnt areas, but that can also be appetizing, so no worries.
C. Instead of sprinkling the rice with salt, sprinkle with sugar crystals for sweet senbei.

usagi manju (steamed dumpling)

2011-02-17T17:08:00.000-08:00

These rabbit-shaped dumplings become especially popular in the Year of the Rabbit, such as this year. I made them with traditional tools and cooking methods. No food processors or microwave ovens appear in this post. I was never as fond of manju (which has the texture of steamed bread or cake), as I am of mochi-type confections, and haven't had much experience making them. But these turned out wonderfully moist and flavorful. So much so that I'm determined to devote more time to manju-making in the future.

Yama-imo (mountain yam) is a central ingredient in the best usagi manju recipes, but my experiments with the most commonly available mountain yam-- naga-imo-- failed because this yam is much too loose and watery for the purpose. I was finally able to get hold of a much denser mountain yam called Tsukune-imo. Tsukune-imo is often packed in sawdust to make it stay fresh longer, and has the shape of a fist. This yam is ground to a paste and combined with joshinko (non-glutinous rice flour) and sugar in a ribbed mortar called suribachi, using a wooden pestle called surikogi.

A common filling for usagi manju is shiro-an (white bean an), perhaps flavored with yuzu zest, or blended with mashed cooked egg yolk for a bright yellow color. But for today's filling, I used what I had on hand, and ended up with a combination of kinako (parched soybean flour) moistened and flavored with ume (usually referred to as Japanese plum, though it is really a kind of apricot) jam and umeboshi (salt-pickled ume). This oblique reference to plum blossoms seemed appropriate for this time of year, as they symbolize the beginning of spring.

Ingredients:
Tsukune-imo, cleaned and peeled.............90 grams
Joshinko ....................................................90 grams
Sugar..........................................................90 grams
Kinako .......................................................50 grams
Ume jam............................................50 ~ 80 grams
Large, soft umeboshi.................................1

Directions:
1. Peel the yam and grate 90 grams of it with a metal grater to give yourself a head start. Then place the grated yam in the ribbed mortar and grind it with the pestle until the yam is a smooth paste. Stirring vigorously with the pestle also helps to fold air into the yam.

2. Add sugar a little at a time and keep grinding and stirring with the pestle. You don't have to use all 50 grams of sugar if you prefer it less sweet.

3. Sift the joshinko and add it to the yam mixture a little at a time, mixing with the pestle until the dough is tender, but firm enough to hold a shape. This is hard work, as the yam gets stiffer and more glutinous the longer you stir it.

4. Divide the yam dough into 8 equal segments and make each segment into a ball. Set aside.

5. Place the kinako in a small mixing bowl. Using a spoon or spatula, mix in a little ume jam and chopped umeboshi (seed removed), adding more jam until the kinako mixture is moist enough to roll into balls that keep their shape. Make 8 balls and set aside.

6. With moistened hands, gently flatten a yam ball on one palm. Place a kinako ball in the center of this and wrap the yam dough around it. Using gentle finger pressure, shape the dumpling in the traditional rabbit shape, as explained in the usagi mochi post. Repeat procedure with the rest of the balls. Simple round manju are perfectly fine too.

7. Put some water to boil in the bottom level of a steamer pot. Place the uncooked manju on little squares of wax paper and place them on a rack above the boiling water so that no manju touches another manju or the boiling water itself. Cover the steamer and cook the manju over medium heat for fifteen minutes.

If, like me, you don't have a steamer, improvise with a regular pot and a metal vegetable steamer.

8. When the manju are done steaming, remove them from the heat and let them cool to room temperature. Add ears and face details with food dye as described in the usagi mochi post.

Note:You can also experiment with shaping the yam dough itself to look like each dumpling has ears and a tail. However, this tends to make the dough thinner in some places than others, and the manju may split in the thin places during steaming. The splitting of the manju (thus revealing the filling) is not a bad thing, and some round manju are made like this on purpose to give them character. But if you want your manju to look like a rabbit, it isn't helpful for the dough to split.

usagi mochi (gyuuhi series)

2011-02-02T15:58:00.000-08:00

I've been busy in the kitchen making all kinds of rabbit-shaped confections in celebration of the year of the rabbit, and had meant to post some of them before the end of January. Unfortunately, I used up all the ingredients for the popular Usagi Manju before I could refine the recipe enough to share with you.

So while I wait for my pantry to be restocked, I've been playing around with gyuuhi. Gyuuhi is made from shiratama-ko (glutinous rice flour, sometimes sold as "mochi-ko"), sugar, and water. Confections made with gyuuhi usually have the word mochi in the name. You may remember that I first introduced gyuuhi a year ago, in the post on plum blossom confections.

Gyuuhi is easy to make, tender,and smooth, so using it to cover a ball of filling and shaping it as you please is relatively easy. In today's post, I wrapped the gyuuhi around a ball of koshi-an, and gently patted it into the rabbit shape that is traditional in the world of wagashi (thick in the rear and slimming to a rounded point in the front). Gyuuhi is too tender, however, to use for shaping the bunny ears, facial features, or bunny tail. So I marked the ears and face with a toothpick dipped in red food coloring. This is common in the world of wagashi, but I find it less than aesthetically satisfying.

Ingredients:
Koshi-an (smooth an)......200 grams
Shiratama-ko.............50 grams
Sugar.........................50 grams
water.........................80 cc
katakuri-ko (potato starch)... enough for dusting work surface
tiny bit of red food coloring dissolved in water

(Note: measurement conversions can be found in the plum blossom post)

Directions:
1. Divide the koshi-an into 8 pieces and roll into balls. Set aside.
2. Place shiratama-ko, sugar, and water in a microwaveable bowl and whisk ingredients briskly till there are no clumps at all.
3. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and heat in microwave oven at 500 for 3 minutes.
4. Mix the goo-ified ingredients rigorously with a wooden spoon or spatula, and remove the resulting clump of dough to a katakuri-ko (or cornstarch)-dusted surface.
5. Divide gyuuhi dough into 8 pieces and flatten each into a circle. Place one an ball in the middle of each circle and wrap gyuuhi around the ball.
6. Pat the filled dough into the rabbit shape described above. Dip a toothpick into the dissolved food coloring and press into the "rabbit" at the right places to mark its ears and face.

Give me a couple more weeks, and I should be able to post a recipe for Usagi Manju.

wagashi and the five senses

2010-09-24T22:51:00.001-07:00

One of the staff at Obubu Tea drew my attention to the TORAYA website, and I really wanted to share it with you because it has a lovely but concise explanation of how good traditional Japanese confections appeal to the five senses. Check it out! (I borrowed the attached image from the TORAYA website.)

respect-for-the-aged-day (and rakugan confections)

2010-09-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

Today we are celebrating Respect-for-the-Aged Day (敬老の日, Keirō no hi), which is a Japanese national holiday to honor elderly citizens. It used to be held on September 15, but now it's held on the third Monday of September so that we can make a long weekend of it (hopefully to use for entertaining our elderly parents and relatives).

Yesterday I was an observer at an event where celebratory confections were being handed out to everyone over seventy. One of these senior citizens, a good friend of mine, pulled a fancy box out of her handbag and asked me if I would like to have it. When she opened it for me, it turned out to be a rakugan confection in the shape of the face of a smiling old woman. My friend was daunted by the size of the thing and didn't care to eat it.

Rakugan is a confection made from a dough of sugar (or sweet syrup) and starchy powder (such as rice powder or potato starch). This is usually shaped into ornate, thumbnail-sized shapes in wooden molds where they become dry and stiff before being tapped out and arranged in pretty boxed collections, most often to accompany the somewhat bitter matcha tea in a tea ceremony. But there are larger versions to give as gifts or display as Buddhist altar offerings on holidays like today.

I'm not a huge rakugan fan (they're too dry and sweet for my taste), so I passed on my friend's offer, but then I thought it might be cool to take a photo and post it at the top for you to see. The photos below show the usual miniature confections in pretty, seasonal shapes. You can find a photo of some rakugan molds in the right column of the blog.

kushi dango w/ 3 sauces

2010-08-14T19:38:00.000-07:00

I've posted dango here before in various presentations, but today I thought I'd go with the very traditional presentation of kushi dango, which is dango threaded on bamboo skewers, lightly grilled, and spread with a variety of sauces. The sauces shown in the photo, from left to right are: mitarashi (sweet soy-based), matcha (green tea powder), and goma (black sesame). My recipe of choice for basic dango is the one where silken tofu is mixed with shiramatako: details can be found on my shiratama an'mitsu post.

1. Prepare the wooden skewers by soaking them in water. This will make it easier to thread the balls, and the skewers will be less likely to burn during the grilling process.

2. Make the dango according to directions described in the link above.

3. Thread the boiled-then-chilled balls, four to a skewer, and grill on a wire net over the cooking ring on your stove or over a charcoal fire, only until the balls get slight, but yummy-looking burn marks. (You can even make these burn marks in a frying pan, if you'd rather not grill.)

4. Remove grilled skewered dango from the heat and spread each row of dango with one of the following three toppings (sauce= tare, paste=an).

Mitarashi sauce:
soy sauce...... 2 Tablespoons
white sugar........ 2 Tablespoons (remove any lumps with a sifter)
mirin..........1 teaspoon (optional)
water.........2 Tablespoons
katakuriko (potato starch or corn starch)...1/2 teaspoon

Place soy sauce, sugar, mirin, and water in small cooking pot over medium heat and stir with wooden spoon till the ingredients are well dissolved. When it begins to boil, slowly add katakuriko which has been liquified with a bit of water, and stir into the rest of the ingredients till it becomes clear and thickened. Remove from heat. Spread the sauce over the dango.

Sesame Sauce: Blend black sesame paste (tahini) with sugar and enough water for desired spreadability and flavor.

Matcha paste: Mix a desired amount of green tea powder into store-bought shiro-an (white bean an), and add enough water to get the desired consistency. Or, if you can't get shiro-an, make a soft version of kinton and mix in matcha (powdered green tea) to taste.

Note: In this recipe, grilling the skewered dango is only for aesthetic purposes. You can skip that step if you want. Adjust ingredients for desired consistency and sweetness.

beko mochi

2010-07-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

Beko mochi is a simple sweet that was common in Hokkaido when I was a child. Families would make it at home using small wooden molds that might have been passed down for generations. It consists of little more than a steamed dough of two kinds of rice flour sweetened with sugar (white sugar for the white dough; dark brown sugar for the brown dough). It contains no an, and no flavoring other than the sugar.

The Hokkaido version of beko mochi is almost always shaped like a leaf-- part white and part brown. City folk sometimes purchase them from wagashi shops-- more for their nostalgia value than for the flavor or appearance. But in the countryside, grandmas still follow the multi-step procedure of kneading two kinds of rice flour (glutinous and non-glutinous), steaming the dough, kneading again, pressing it into molds, and steaming it again.

I was taught to make beko mochi years ago, when I was working for a small coastal town in southern Hokkaido with a population of 2700. The town's one and only hardware store sold several different kinds of roughly carved wooden molds that charmed me so much, I bought one of each before I even knew what they were for. I haven't made beko mochi since then, and had no real desire to do so, but recently I came across a boxed beko mochi mix that came with its own plastic leaf mold. I bought it with the full intention of making a batch for this blog.... but I never got around to it. Sorry. (Blame this monstrously hot summer.)

So the photos I've posted are of store-bought beko mochi, and the store-bought beko mochi mix. :D

kashiwa mochi

2010-05-02T19:55:00.000-07:00

Japan is now in the middle of Golden Week, a series of holidays starting from April 29 and going till May 5. When I was little, May 5 was called "Boys' Day." Various foods and displays that symbolized the parents' prayers and dreams for their sons were the highlight of this festival. And even as a girl, it was exciting to be a part of of the celebrations.

Nowadays, the holiday is called "Children's Day," but the festival retains much of its masculine feel. Typical displays include old-style warrior helmets and armor. This contrasts with March 3 which is officially called "Doll's Day," and is a festival to celebrate the traditional feminine qualities that parents once wished for their little girls. The typical display is dolls dressed in the costumes of the ancient imperial court. I think both festivals are fun, and no amount of indoctrination in political correctness will change that.

One of the sweets traditionally associated with Boy's Day/Children's Day is Kashiwa Mochi. A Dictionary of Japanese Food by Richard Hosking defines it thus: "Round shaped mochi filled with an and wrapped in an oak leaf. It is especially eaten on May 5, Children's Day (formerly Boys' Day), the symbolism being that oak leaves do not wither." (p.74)

Here is a recipe from Denshi Renji de Kantan Wagashi (easy Japanese sweets made with a microwave oven) by Matsui Michiru:

Ingredients:
smooth an (koshi-an, sieved sweet red bean paste)....200 grams
non-glutinous rice flour (johshinko)......200 grams
water............................280 cc
oak leaves.....................8

Directions:
1. Divide the an into 8 portions of equal size and roll each portion into a ball.
2. In a microwave-safe dish, place rice flour and water, mixing them well.
3. Cover the dish and heat in microwave for 4 minutes. Remove dish from microwave, mix contents again, and microwave for 3 more minutes.
4. Remove the dough from the dish and wrap it in a clean, moistened kitchen towel. With the dough wrapped in the towel, knead the dough until it is smooth.
5. Moisten your hands with water and divide the dough into 8 equal portions, pressing each portion gently into an oval shape. Place one an ball in the middle of each dough oval. Fold the dough over the the an ball, sealing the edges .
6. When the dough has cooled, fold an oak leaf over each of the an-wrapped dough balls.

These freeze well. Defrost at room temp when you're ready to serve them.

stuffed kumquats

2010-04-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

I'd been saving a bag of kumquats (kinkan) in syrup to serve as a special dessert one of these days. But "one-of-these-days" kept getting postponed, and in the meantime I decided to turn these little bitty citrus fruits into wagashi by stuffing them in a manner not unlike the stuffed dried persimmons I posted a couple months ago. The kumquats were smaller and more fragile than the dried persimmons, so it was a little tricky, but the results were definitely worth it!

Ingredients:
kumquats in syrup, syrup drained and reserved for other use
shiro-an (white bean an)
walnuts, chopped
granulated sugar (optional)

Directions
Pat the kumquats dry and slice them in half, preferably not all the way through, so that the peel is still connected on one side. Stick a fork in the center of the exposed flesh on one side of the halved fruit, and gently tug at it so it all comes out in one piece from the peel. This is surprisingly easy. Do that to the other half, then follow procedure for all the rest of the kumquats.

Remove any seeds, then chop the kumquat flesh. Mix it with an equal amount of shiro-an, and stir a much lesser amount of chopped walnuts into the mixture. Using a teaspoon, stuff the mixture into the two halves of each kumquat, then press the halves together so that they appear whole again. Sprinkle the stuffed kumquats with granulated sugar, and spear with toothpicks to serve. These sweet/bitter treats go great with hot green tea, and just as well with coffee.

sakura mochi

2010-03-04T18:19:00.000-08:00

What better way to welcome the spring cherry blossom-viewing season than with cherry blossom-scented wagashi and a cup of fragrant, newly-harvested green tea (shin-cha)? Sakura-mochi is one of my absolute favorite wagashi of all time, and I was thrilled to discover it can be easily made at home. There are two main regional variations for sakura-mochi. My preferred version uses doumyouji-ko （道明寺子粉）, granules made from mochi rice that has been soaked in water, steamed, dried, and then coarsely ground. If doumyoujiko is not available at a market near you, it can be ordered online, or you may be able to persuade a wagashi shop to sell you some from their stock.

Ingredients for 8 confections:
Koshi-an (smooth red bean an).....160 grams/6.5 oz
Doumyouji-ko (mochi granules).....100 grams/3.5 oz
sugar.....1 Tablespoon, or more to taste.
very hot water.....150 cc/5 oz
red/pink food coloring, the barest pinch
cherry leaves preserved in salt.....8
cherry blossoms preserved in salt....8 (optional)

Directions:
1. Soak cherry leaves in cold water for 15 ~30 minutes to remove excess salt. Pat dry.

2. Divide the koshi-an into 8 equal lumps, and roll each into a ball. Set aside.

3. Put doumyouji-ko, sugar, and very hot water in a microwave-safe bowl. Stir it around, and add just a pinch of red food coloring so that the mixture turns a pale pink. Let this sit for 10 minutes.

4. Microwave the bowl with its contents for 2 minutes, uncovered. (My microwave oven only does 500 W, and is a bit on the weak side, so I nuked it 1/2 minute longer). Let this sit for 15 minutes.

5. Use a wooden spatula to stir the contents of the bowl, to bring out the stickiness of the mochi.

6. Moisten your hands and separate the mochi mixture into 8 equal lumps. (I moisten my hands from a bowl of slightly salty water. This adds just a hint of salt to the mochi to supplement whatever salt remains in the cherry leaves, and helps bring out the sweetness of the confection.) Gently flatten each lump into a circular patty.

7. Place a ball of an in the center of one of the mochi patties and gently stretch the patty so that it envelopes the an ball. Do this to all the mochi and an.

8. Place one of the an-wrapped mochi balls on a cherry leaf, on the half nearest to the pointy end, and bring the rounded end of the leaf over the top of the ball. Do this to all of the balls and leaves. Press gently to flatten the balls just a bit, to insure that the leaves adhere.

9. Let the sakura-mochi settle for a while before serving. The fragrance of the leaves will transfer to the mochi. The leaf is edible, but you may want to pull away the tough center vein in the middle of the leaf if you decide to eat it along with the mochi. (This is what I do).

Traditionally the mochi is wrapped so that the smooth side of the leaf (the side where the veins don't show prominently) is visible. The veiny side had a brighter green, so I tried it both ways; some with the smooth side facing out, and some with the bumpy side facing out.

Variations: You can decorate some of the mochi balls with cherry blossoms (gently rinse the salt off the blossom and blot dry) instead of wrapping them in leaves. Or try stirring minced cherry leaves into the mochi mixture before you microwave it, for another flavorful, un-wrapped version of sakura mochi. Garnish tops with cherry blossoms. The blossom is edible.

The leaves are where the cherry blossom fragrance is strongest. The blossoms are mainly for show. Click to see my recipe for Sakura Cheesecake.

lily root kinton

2010-02-25T18:08:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:
lily root, sometimes called lily bulbs (yuri-ne)....2 heads
sugar.....1 Tablespoon or more to taste
salt....a pinch
food coloring, sesame seeds and sprinkles for decoration (optional)

Lily root looks a bit like a head of garlic, but flatter. It should be available at an Asian food market. It usually comes to the consumer packed in sawdust. Kept this way, lily root can stay fresh for months in the refrigerator.

Turn the lily root over and you'll find a gnarly "belly button" that must be cut out before you can separate the "petals" of the root. This can be done easily with the pointy end of a potato peeler.

Carefully pry off the "petals" from the outer row of the root, working your way towards the center. When the "petals" have been separated, rinse them well in water to get all the dirt and sawdust out of the nooks and crannies. Cut away any brown edges or spots. Place the lily root segments in vigorously boiling salted water for about five minutes, or until the petals are soft enough to mash between your fingers.

Drain the lily root and mash finely while it is still hot. I do this by using a fine-meshed wire colander as a sieve, but a small-capacity food processor would probably work just as well. If the mashed lily root is too wet/soft to form into balls, put it back into the cooking pot and stir it with a wooden spoon over medium heat until enough liquid has evaporated to make it firmer. Add sugar to taste. After it's cooled to room temperature, mix in a pinch of salt.

The mashed lily root will be creamy white, but at this point you may add food coloring to all or part of the lily root. (With small children in mind, I decided to make colorful balls and dyed part of the mashed lily root yellow, and part of it orange.) Divide the mashed lily root into six equal segments and shape each segment into a ball.

Twist each ball in a square of plastic wrap, and set aside for ten minutes or more. When the balls have settled, unwrap them carefully so as not to disturb the "wrinkles" that the plastic wrap made in the sides of each ball. To make the balls even more colorful, I sprinkled the yellow ones with black sesame seeds, and the orange ones with multi-colored chocolate sprinkles. For adults, I would probably have left the mashed lily root its natural color and topped each ball with grated citrus peel.

Lily root is very mild in flavor, but it has a fun crunchy texture when simply blanched, and a distinctive creamy texture when cooked through. To see how I use it in savory (non-dessert) dishes, go to Lily Root in Three Courses.

stuffed dried persimmons (2)

2010-02-05T21:10:00.000-08:00

I once suggested this version of stuffed dried persimmons waay, waay back, as a short postscript to a post about dried persimmons stuffed with cream cheese and candied yuzu peel. But since I finally took some photos of the An & Walnuts version, I thought I'd post them to show you how easy and attractive it is.

Ingredients:
Dried persimmons (I used Ichida-gaki, a soft and gooey brand of dried persimmon from Nagano prefecture)
Shiro-an (white bean an)
Walnuts, chopped

Directions:
1. Mix the walnuts and an together.
2. Gently remove the woody caps from each dried persimmon. Use a knife if you need to.
3. Press a finger through the hole where the cap used to be and gently create a cavity in the persimmon without breaking the outside skin.
4. Stuff the cavity with the an/walnut mixture, little by little till it is full.
5. Replace the woody caps over the holes, and dust the stuffed persimmons with granulated sugar.

Serve with strong, unsweetened Japanese tea.

shiruko/zenzai in three variations

2010-02-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

According to A Dictionary of Japanese Food by Richard Hosking, shiruko is a "sweet soup made from the an of azuki beans with mochi or dango [dumplings] of shiratama added. If the an is not sieved, the soup is called zenzai." Hosking defines zenzai as "sweet red bean (azuki) soup. Toasted mochi are served in a sweet soup of an. The type of an used varies with the part of Japan."

Well, call me an ignorant country bumpkin, but I didn't hear the term zenzai till I lived in the Kansai region as an adult. When I was a child growing up in Hokkaido, we called all soupy an by the name of shiruko. I was congratulating myself on learning the difference at last, when I discovered that in these modern times, traditional definitions often no longer apply. Curiosity led to experimentation, and experimentation led to the three recipes I've posted here.

Let's start out with my version of traditional shiruko/zenzai. I heat the contents of a can of sweetened boiled azuki beans (or an) and thin it with water to the desired consistency. Meanwhile I grill some mochi on a net over my gas burner. I like brown rice mochi because I find it is more fragrant and flavorful than the white version. And I like to grill it so that it burns a little around the edges. This gives it a pleasant smokey flavor. I spoon the hot azuki soup into individual bowls and plunk grilled mochi into each bowl. To raise the dish to the level of a dessert for a celebration, or for guests, I add to each bowl one chestnut that has been bottled in syrup. So simple!

Next, give this refreshing, chilled version of shiruko/zensai a try. The ingredients are an, yogurt, and shiratama dumplings. Find my recipe for shiratama dumplings here. I use tofu instead of water when I make my dumplings. This produces dumplings with denser flavor that stay soft longer that ones made with water, even after they've been chilled in the refrigerator. I usually make a lot at once, and freeze them in small batches for later use.

Blend an with yogurt to desired consistency (add sweetener if you must), pour into individual serving bowls, and plop a few shiratama dumplings in the middle. No heating with this recipe. Serve chilled. It has a very pretty pinkish-purplish hue that makes me think of blueberries.

Finally, here's a recipe for shiruko that doesn't include azuki at all. Heat some sesame paste (neri-goma) in a saucepan and gradually thin it out with some milk till you get it to the desired consistency. Add sugar till you get it to the desired sweetness. Blend well. When the soup is smooth and heated through, pour into individual bowls and add sliced bananas and shiratama dumplings. I played with the color combination of this one, using black sesame paste and adding dried yomogi (mugwort) to the shiratama-ko to produce green dumplings in addition to the usual white ones. The black-speckled soup with green and white dumplings and yellow banana slices made for an amusing/entertaining/startling shiruko that appealed to my passion for colorful food. This was a big hit with my husband, who is not partial to desserts with an.

I haven't bothered with measurements, because the important thing here is the idea of these variations, and you can adjust as you please to make more/less, sweet/not-so-sweet versions of these desserts. Some of you may want to make azuki an from scratch. More power to you. I don't use an enough to make it from scratch myself.

plum blossoms (gyuuhi series)

2010-01-22T23:02:00.000-08:00

Though in northern Japan we are still snowbound, and will be for at least three more months, we were comforted, along with all of Japan, when the TV weather girl announced last week that plum blossoms had begun to bloom somewhere down south. Plum blossoms are one of the official harbingers of Spring. Yes, it's that time of the year when any self-respecting, Japan-based foodie will insert something plum-related into the menu.

Today's recipe is for a plum blossom-shaped, plum-flavored confection made from gyuuhi, a mochi-like dough that is tender and easier to mold than mochi. The original recipe uses plain white bean an (shiro-an) as the filling, but I mixed preserved plums into the an. Half with chopped red pickled plums, and the other half with chopped sweetened green plums left over from making plum wine. Sometimes you can find these green plums at the bottom of a bottle of plum wine. Don't throw them out. Freeze them and use them for just such a recipe as this.

Ingredients (for 8 confections):

shiratama-ko (glutinous rice powder)...50 grams/1.6 oz
granulated sugar..................50 grams/1.6 oz
water.................................80 cc/ 1/3 cup

katakuriko (potato flour, may substitute corn starch).....1/2 cup or less
shiro-an (white bean an)....................160 grams/ 5.5 oz
soft umeboshi (red salt-pickled plums) and ao-ume (preserved green plums)...2 each
the yolk of a boiled egg, for decoration

Directions:

1. Finely chop the red and green plums, discarding the pits. Mix half of the an with the pickled plums, and the other half with the green plums. Divide each half into four equal portions (eight total) and roll them into balls.

2. Place the shiratama-ko, sugar, and water in a microwave-safe bowl. Stir with a whisk till any lumps are gone. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and cook in microwave at 500 watts for 3 minutes. When done, use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir the mixture thoroughly. This is the gyuuhi dough.

3. Dump the gyuuhi dough onto a surface sprinkled with katakuriko (or corn starch) and divide into 8 equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball, then flatten each gyuuhi ball and wrap it around one of the an balls.

4. Use the dull edge of a knife to press 5 lines from the outer edge of each ball to its center, to represent the petals of the plum blossom. The gyuuhi will bounce back, so press firmly.

5. When all eight balls look like plum blossoms, place a pinch of boiled egg yolk in each center.

notes: The red plum-an mixture was very soft due to the moisture in the umeboshi. It was hard to form it into balls. But the flavor balance of the sour umeboshi and the sweet shiro-an was fantastic. The green plum-an, on the other hand, had the interesting crunchy texture of green plums without much added moisture, so the an was easy to handle. I liked the flavor of the red plum-an filled confections best.

My conversions into ounces are always approximate. Please use metric if possible, and if not, check the conversions with your own reference books to make sure.

wagashi-style imo-mochi

2010-01-12T14:15:00.000-08:00

The area where I live is famous in Japan for its potatoes. We are used to having potatoes in our diet in a variety of forms, including a snack loved by children and tourists. This is imo-mochi, a dumpling made only of potatoes and potato flour, and pan-fried in a bit of butter. The potato flour (you can substitute corn starch) gives the dumplings a glutinous texture like mochi rice cakes- hence the name. Ordinarily we shape the potato mixture into roughly circular patties, but given a fancier shape, this rustic snack becomes a pretty confection that is suitable for a tea party. It is not usually sweetened, but for this post, I've offered a sweet alternative.

ingredients (for 10 confections)
potatoes.....cooked and mashed (without skins), 250 grams/8 oz
katakuriko (potato starch).....50 grams/1.6 oz
butter.....1/2~1Tablespoon
soy sauce, seaweed flakes (salt, sugar, optional)

directions:
1. Mash the potatoes while they are still hot, add the katakuriko (or corn starch) and a pinch of salt. Combine ingredients thoroughly with a spatula. Depending on the potato or how it was cooked, it may need a tiny bit of water to make it malleable. If you decide to add water, start with one teaspoon or less.
2. When the mixture has cooled enough to handle, knead it with your hands till it is a smooth, elastic ball.
3. Roll the dough into a rope about 15~20 cm (6-8 inches) long, then cut it into 10 equal segments.
4. Place one of the segments on the palm of your hand and shape it into a leaf. Using the dull side of a dinner knife, make vein-like impressions on the top of the leaf. Do this to all segments.
5. Heat a frying pan over medium fire and melt the butter in it.
6. Place the leaves in the frying pan (vein side down), and cover the pan. Cook till they begin to brown- about 2 minutes should be enough.
7. Turn the leaves over and cook for 1-2 minutes more.
8. Remove potato leaves to a plate and brush a little soy sauce over the surface of each. Then sprinkle a bit of seaweed flakes over them in an irregular pattern.

These little imo-mochi leaves will be crispy on the outside, soft and chewy like mochi on the inside. The dish and fork in the photo are very small, so the leaves are smaller than you might think-- no more than 3 inches long, and 2 inches at the widest part. They are best eaten hot.

If you want a sweet version, add sugar to taste when preparing the potato dough in step #1, omit step #8 and instead, add soy sauce and sugar to the pan just before the potato leaves are cooked through. This will form a syrup with which you can coat the potato leaves, just as we did in the previous post on renkon yakimochi.

renkon yakimochi

2009-12-29T17:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a wagashi (traditional Japanese confection) recipe that may remind you of Chinese Dim Sum. I tweaked a recipe I found in Haruko Kanezuka's book Wa no Oyatsu (Japanese snacks). It is not overly sweet, as so many Western desserts tend to be, but that's only one of the reasons I like it so much. It's made from healthy ingredients, is quick to make from start to finish, has interesting texture, and is visually interesting too.

Main ingredients (six confections):

Shiratama-ko (flour made from sticky rice)......... 50 grams (1 & 2/3 oz)
Fresh or water-packed lotus root, some for slicing and some for grating.......(buy about 150 grams worth=5 oz)
Black sesame seeds....2 teaspoons
Soy sauce....2 teaspoons
Sugar....1 Tablespoon
a bit of oil for frying
cheese, (optional)

Prep:
If the lotus root is fresh (un-packaged), peel it. Cut 6 thin (3~4 cm) slices from it and put the slices in a bowl of cold water to keep them from oxidizing and changing color. Grate enough of the remaining lotus root to make 100 grams (3.5 oz) worth. If using cheese, chop enough to make 5~6 teaspoons worth.

Cooking directions:
1. Place the shiratama-ko and the grated lotus root in a bowl and gently knead together to make a cohesive ball.
2. Add the sesame seed to the above, and knead till mixed evenly into the dough.
3. Divide dough into 6 equal balls.
4. Flatten each ball against the palm of your hand and place a teaspoon or less of chopped cheese in the middle. Wrap the dough around it and pat it back into a ball.
5. Pat the lotus root slices dry with paper towels, and flatten a dough ball against each slice.
6. Heat a little oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Then place all the lotus/dough patties in the pan with the lotus side down. Reduce heat to low, cover pan, and let steam-cook for 5 minutes.
7. Turn the patties over and steam-cook for 3 more minutes.
8. Remove excess oil from pan with paper towels, and then add the soy sauce and sugar to the pan. Stir with a wooden spoon or shake the pan to dissolve the sugar into the soy sauce, tossing the patties till they are coated with this sauce.

As an alternative, replace the cheese with a different filling, or leave the filling out all together. Either way, this is a delicious snack! Serve with bancha tea.

kuri kinton

2009-11-05T18:14:00.000-08:00

Kinton is one of the easiest to make among Japanese confections, and Kuri Kinton (Chestnut Kinton) is probably the most traditional among the many kinds you can make. The most common version involves mixing pureed sweet potato (satsuma-imo) with whole or crumbled chestnuts-bottled-in-syrup-- a spoon-able version that often appears as part of O-sechi ryouri (New Year's cuisine arranged prettily in fancy lacquered boxes). I find that version a bit too sweet, and lacking in visual appeal. For many years I was convinced I didn't like kinton confections at all. But then I discovered the molded kuri kinton made by a number of wagashi artisans. The recipe posted here was inspired by one of my favorites, a kuri kinton made by Seigetsudou Honpo, a confectionery of Gifu prefecture.

Ingredients for 5~7 confections:
boiled or roasted chestnuts, peeled..........240 grams/8 oz
mizu ame (rice syrup) or corn syrup.......just enough to moisten the chestnuts

Set aside one or two chestnuts, and mash the rest to a pulp. Mix in rice syrup, a tiny bit at a time, until the mashed chestnuts are just moist enough to stick together when you squeeze a clump of it in your hand. If it is not sweet enough for you, add some sugar until it is. Chop the chestnuts that were set aside--finely, but not so fine that you don't notice them when you bite into the confection. Mixed the chopped chestnuts into the mashed moistened chestnuts. Divide the mixture into 5~7 portions and twist each portion in a square of plastic wrap so it gets shaped into a ball marked with wrinkles from the wrap. When each ball is firmly shaped, press gently down from the top to flatten it a little. Unwrap the confections just before serving. Delicious with hot green tea or houji-cha.

If chestnuts-bottled-in-syrup is all you can get, go ahead and use it. The chestnuts will be easier to mash, and you probably won't have to add any further sweetener.

ginkgo nut pastry nuggets

2009-10-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

In Sapporo, it's now the season when ginkgo nuts start dropping from the maidenhair trees. I racked my brains to think of a tea-time treat that could be made from this seasonal delight. We think of wagashi, of course, as a sweet thing. But not all Japanese tea-time treats are sweet. We munch on sembei rice crackers of all kinds as an accompaniment to tea, and one of my favorite snacks is a brick of mochi grilled till it's crackly outside and melty inside, then served with a mixture of soy sauce and grated daikon radish. Mmmm, delicious! Ginkgo nuts strike me as best suited to a savory snack.

Ginkgo nuts.... although used frequently enough in Asian cuisine, they usually seem relegated to a minor role, and I have read that it isn't a good idea to eat too many of them at one time. So...how to make them the star of a dish without using too many at one time? I decided to adjust a recipe I have often used with olives.

Ingredients for 30 snacks:
Cheese, 1 cup (I had Gouda on hand, so that's what I used), finely chopped
Butter, 1/4 cup softened
Flour, 3/4 cup sifted
Paprika, 1/2 teaspoon
Oyster sauce, 1 teaspoon,
Hot pepper sauce, a dash
Black sesame seeds, 2 tablespoons
30 ginkgo nuts

The best ginkgo nuts are freshly gathered. If you are lucky enough to get these, you'll need to know how to prep them for this recipe. I hate the water-logged texture of canned ginkgo nuts, but the procedure of extracting the nuts from their smelly yucky inedible fruit exterior has always put me off prepping them from scratch. This time, however, a friend did the yucky work, and presented me with a bagful of cleaned up and sun-dried ginkgo nuts in the shell.

Use pliers to crack open the hard exterior of the nuts. It may take a few tries before you figure out how to use just enough force to crack open the shell without smashing the nut inside. Don't worry about any papery skins remaining on them. Next, roll the shelled nuts around in a hot wok with a tiny bit of oil. The nuts will take on a beautiful jade green color. After you take them off the stove, you'll see how easy it now is to slip the papery skins off. Sprinkle them with salt and let them cool.

Next, work the chopped cheese, softened butter, flour, paprika, oyster sauce, and hot pepper sauce into a pastry-type dough with your fingers, trying to get everything to bind together without overworking the dough. The dough will look dry and crumbly when you're finished, but if you take some in your hand and squeeze gently, it should stick together firmly. Take a bit of the dough, press it into a one-inch-sized ball, then flattened it on your palm. Place one nut in the center of this flattened dough, and then wrap the dough around it to reform a ball. Do this with all the dough and ginkgo nuts until they are used up (about 30 balls). Then gently press the balls into some sesame seeds. Lay the balls an inch apart on an UNgreased cookie sheet, and bake them in a 200 C (400F) degree oven for 15 minutes.

Baked pastry nuggets freeze very well.

miniature kabocha confections (nerikiri series)

2009-10-06T17:04:00.000-07:00

The nerikiri dough (rice flour and white bean an combo) is as easy to use as playdough. A lot of people have been telling me it reminds them of marzipan, which I've never tried. And I don't know if marzipan can be made with a main ingredient other than almonds, but I do know that neriki can be made with alternate ingredients. In today's recipe, I substituted pureed kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) for the white bean an, wrapped the resulting nerikiri around a core of red bean an, and molded it to look like a miniature kabocha.

Ingredients for ten confections:

kabocha (or pumpkin)..... enough to result in 300 grams/ 10 oz of puree
shiratama-ko (glutinous rice flour)....2 teaspoons
sugar (optional)......30 grams/ 1 oz
matcha (powdered green tea).... 1 Tablespoon
tsubuan (coarse red bean an).....150 grams/ 5 oz
black or white sesame seeds for decoration (optional)....20~ 30
pine nuts or sunflower seeds for decoration (optional)....10

I cut one medium-sized kabocha into chunks and microwaved the chunks (loosely covered with plastic wrap) till the orange flesh was tender. When the chunks had cooled enough to handle, I cut away the hard green peel from the orange flesh, and mashed the flesh with a fork till it was a smooth paste. You can do this in a food processor if you prefer. I didn't add any sugar because I thought the kabocha was sweet enough. But if you like it sweeter, add sugar as you mash the kabocha.

Dissolve the shiratama-ko (rice flour) in a tablespoon of water, and mix it thoroughly into the kabocha puree. Click here for detailed directions (with photos) for making nerikiri. When the kabocha neriki is the right consistency and cooled to room temp, divide the dough in half. Take one of the halves and knead matcha (green tea) powder into it. This will color the dough green and add a wonderful green tea fragrance.

Roll the tsubuan (red bean an) into ten balls. Roll the orange half of the nerikiri dough into about 15 balls, and the green half into about 15 balls.

Once again, click here to see photos of how to put three nerikiri balls together in your palm and press them together to form a flat circle large enough to enclose one of the tsubuan balls. Only this time, combine the orange and green so that any one confection will be mostly green (with a dash of orange), or mostly orange (with a dash of green). Pinch pieces off the balls to adjust the amount of color you are aiming for.

Make sure the seams are smooth and the separate pieces of dough are sticking well to each other. Then press gently down on the top so that each ball is slightly squashed. Use the dull edge of a straight utensil (I used chopsticks) to press dents into the flattened balls to make them look more like real kabocha. I used sesame seeds to express the imperfections in the outer skin of the kabocha, and a sunflower seed to represent the stem.

O-hagi (plus an explanation of "an")

2009-10-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

A Dictionary of Japanese Food by Richard Hosking describes O-hagi as an "inside-out rice cake, so called because the an normally inside the cake is on the outside. The cake is named after hagi (bush clover), which flowers in the autumn and which the cake vaguely resembles. When these cakes are made in spring, they are called Botan mochi (peony cakes). They are made with a mixture of glutinous and non-glutinous rice and are coated with tsubuan... Simple, very popular, and very good."

I often think of Ohagi as an inside-out daifuku, which I guess is what Hosking means by "rice cake.". I introduced daifuku in my blog on Ichigo-Daifuku (Strawberry Daifuku), in which a fresh strawberry and red bean an were wrapped in mochi. An is a paste that can be made from various starchy ingredients and sugar, but the most common ingredient is azuki beans, which are reddish. Red bean an comes in various degrees of coarseness. The tsubu-an mentioned in the quote above is a coarse an which includes pieces of the bean skin. Koshi-an is smooth an where the skins have been sieved out. Shiro-an is made from white kidney beans. An can also be made from sweet potatoes, chestnuts, and lily roots, among other things.

Today I made kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) an to slather over my ohagi. I use a short-cut method to make the mochi center, by following the directions in the aforementioned Strawberry Daifuku blog. You may, of course, prepare a mixture of glutinous mochi rice and non-glutinous rice from scratch, but you won't find directions here for that (sorry).

To make the pumpkin an, I cut up a Japanese pumpkin (kabocha) and cooked it in my microwave until it was soft. I scraped the orange flesh off the tough green outer peel, and mashed it with a fork. Use a food processor if you like. Kabocha are naturally sweet, but if you want it sweeter-- or if you use a pumpkin that isn't quite as sweet-- add sugar to taste as you mash it.

Make oblong rolls of mochi (made sufficiently soft by following the directions in the daifuku blog) and coat with with the pumpkin an. I made a few of the traditional ohagi covered in coarse red bean an, a few with the pumpkin an, and placed one of each on a dish for contrast.

camellia blossoms (nerikiri series)

2009-10-02T02:33:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I explained how to make nerikiri, a combination of sweet white bean paste (shiro-an) and rice flour (shiratamako) that is the basis for a whole category of traditional Japanese sweets. Once you get the hang of neriki, this camellia blossom wagashi is a cinch to make.

Ingredients for 10 confections:

nerikiri dough from previous post, (about 300 grams/ 10 oz)
food coloring (red, yellow)

1. Divide 90 grams (3 oz) of the nerikiri into ten equal pieces. Roll each piece into an oblong ball.
2. Color 150 grams (5 oz) of the nerikiri red, and divide it into 50 equal parts.
3. Color the remaining nerikiri yellow, and divide it into 10 equal parts.
4. Flatten each yellow piece into a roughly rectangular shape (1.5 cm x 4.0 cm) and make little cuts along the top of the long edge with a knife. Wrap each one around a rolled piece of uncolored nerikiri.
5. Shape each piece of red nerikiri into a thin flower petal (wider at one end than the other), and place five petals evenly around the sides of each of the white and yellow centers you made in #4.

Serve with hot green tea.

fall leaves (nerikiri series)

2009-09-23T16:49:00.001-07:00

I started my wagashi adventures with the easier confections that women of my parents' generation, and to a lesser degree my own, made for their families at home. Nowadays these confections are readily available at any market or roadside stall, so today's busy young mothers are less inclined to make them from scratch. I meant to prove to myself, and to my readers, that these confections can be made easily, cheaply, and quickly, and that they are so much better for you and your kids than the pre-packaged, mass-produced junk we would eat otherwise.

Before long I was ready to try something a bit more challenging, and I decided to take a swing at Nerikiri, which is the basis for a whole wonderful world of delicately-shaped and subtly-colored confections. The basic ingredients are the familiar ones from earlier posts.

Nerikiri ingredients:
White bean an........ 300 grams (10 oz)
Shiratamako........5 grams (about 2 teaspoons)
Water.......1 tablespoon

Place the shiratamako in a small bowl with the water, and stir till the rice flour is completely dissolved. Add the white bean an to the dissolved shiratamako and mix thoroughly. Divide the an mixture into 6~8 equal portions and lay, without overlapping, in a ring around the outer edge of a round microwave-safe dish (I used a pyrex pie dish).

Leave the dish uncovered, and nuke in microwave for 3 minutes so that the excess moisture will evaporate out of the an mixture. Depending on the power of your microwave, you may have to repeat this two or three times. I ended up microwaving at 500W for a total of 7 minutes before the mixture was dehydrated enough (you want to be able to knead it like playdough).

Take the an mixture out of the microwave and scrape the separate portions into one lump and knead together so that it becomes a smooth ball of dough. Cover this with a damp kitchen towel and let sit until cooled to room temperature.

Directions for Fall Leaves confection:
An dough from recipe above
Red Bean an..... enough to make 6~8 1-inch sized balls
Food dye

Divide the cooled nerikiri dough into three lumps roughly equal in size. Using food dye, color one lump green, another one yellow or orange, and the last one red or pink. I used powdered dye and dissolved the tiniest amount (1/8 teaspoon) with a drop or two of water before kneading the an dough into it. To make the orange color, I mixed yellow and red dye together before kneading the dough into it.

If the an dough gets too moist during this process, put it back into the microwave for a couple of minutes to dry it out enough to handle like playdough. Make 6~8 small balls from each color of dough. Place one ball of each color together (as shown below) and gently squeeze them so that they stick together. Place this on the palm of your hand and stretch it out without letting the colors mix up too much. Put a ball of red bean an in the middle and gently pull the colored dough around it till it is wrapped completely. Place this large dough ball in the center of a square of plastic wrap and twist the corners firmly at the top. (Traditionally, this is done with a thin cotton cloth.)

Let the confection settle for a while in a cool place (refrigerator would be good). When ready to serve, gently remove the plastic wrap so that the wrinkles formed in the confection are not disturbed. The idea is to evoke autumn by reproducing the tints of fall leaves. Experiment with different color intensities and combinations to suit your taste. I made some with just green and yellow dough, and others with just orange and red.

If you prefer a subtler color combination than shown here, experiment with dye products and techniques and you see what you can come up with. I will be posting several more in the nerikiri series of Japanese confections. The one shown here is one of the very simplest of these, but they can become quite fancy. Once you get the hang of nerikiri, there's so much you can do with it!

mugi-kogashi

2009-09-02T20:34:00.000-07:00

Last week, while rummaging through the shelves of a wholesaler that caters to owners of small restaurants and izakaya (drinking establishments that also serve meals), I discovered a packet of brown powder that I had never noticed before. The name of the product was Mugi-Kousen. It turns out that mugi-kousen goes by other names depending on the region of Japan. In some regions it is known as hattaiko, and in others mugi-kogashi. They all refer to pulverized roasted barley. A little googling made it clear that this product, which I will call mugi-kogashi (literally "parched barley"), can substitute for kinako (soybean flour) in many recipes, such as the one in the kinako nejiri post. It can also be mixed with cold water for a summertime drink, or with an equivalent amount of sugar for coating mochi. It has a wonderful fragrance, and a rich roasted grain flavor when used in wagashi.

I decided to make a sweet paste out of it-- an alternative to red bean an-- and serve it with dango (rice flour dumplings). The recipe for dumplings is basically the same one I used for shiratama an'mitsu

ingredients:
silken tofu, 400 gr/14 oz
shiratama-ko (glutenous rice flour), 200 gr/7 oz
mugi-kogashi (parched barley flour), approx. 100 gr/3.5 oz
granulated sugar, approx. 100 gr/3.5 oz (adjust for desired sweetness)

Place drained tofu in medium-sized bowl with shiratama flour, and knead together with your fingers till well-blended and soft, but firm. In Japan, the right consistency for dumplings is often described as "the firmness of your earlobes." Keep some shiratama flour in reserve, and add it little by little till you get the right consistency.

Take spoonfuls of the dough and roll them into balls 1 ~ 1&1/2 inch in diameter. Place the balls in a pot of boiling water. Wait a minute or so after the balls rise to the surface, before scooping them out and transferring them to a bowl of very cold or iced water.

Put the roasted barley flour and sugar in a medium-sized bowl. Blend them together with a fork or your fingers. Moisten the dry ingredients by slowly adding water and stirring with a fork or spoon. You want it to become a paste that is stiff enough to allow you to shape it with your hands.

Take a lump of mugi-kogashi paste and flatten it out a bit on the palm of your hand. Place a shiratama ball in the center of the paste, and gently press on the paste till it encloses the ball. Do this till all the balls and paste are used up. Just before serving, you may want to decorate the balls with a sprinkling of crystallized sugar. Any extra shiratama balls or mugi-kogashi paste can be frozen for future use.

Variations: (1) thread some of the shiratama balls on a bamboo skewer or toothpick and spread a bit of the mugi-kogashi paste over the top. (2) Grill some blocks of mochi till they are crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside, and serve mugi-kogashi paste. (3) Follow basic directions for ichigo daifuku, leaving out the strawberry and using the mugi-kogashi paste instead of the red bean an.

For step by step photos click here.

bon-gashi

2009-08-15T18:25:00.000-07:00

O-Bon or the Bon Festival, which takes place in mid-August, is the time of year when the spirits of deceased ancestors are said to return to their former homes. Young nuclear families depart the urban centers in droves, and head to their ancestral bases in the countryside, where the elders of the extended family tend the Buddhist family altar (butsudan) and the family grave. While many of us may associate the Bon season with Bon-odori dances and paper lanterns, there is a type of wagashi that makes its appearance at this time too.

Bon-gashi (Bon confections), as they are called, are meant to be set in front of, or on, the family altar as an offering to the spirits of the ancestors. When the Bon celebration is over, the living family members eat the sweets. They are very pretty in appearance, and often molded into shapes associated with the afterlife, such as lotus blossoms and lotus leaves. Usually they are of the rakugan family of confections, which are shaped in wooden molds, are very dry, and have a long shelf-life. Rakugan confections are often served as the sweet counterpart to the slightly bitter matcha tea in traditional tea ceremonies. Basic ingredients include rice flour, soy flour, and sugar.

Though I have no use for butsudan offerings, each year I give in to the temptation to buy a box of these pretty sweets. But the truth is, I find them overly sweet and dry. Because I deplore wastefulness, I either force myself to eat them or give them away. Today, as I was flitting about the internet looking at photos of pretty Bon-gashi, I found a page that showed (with diagrams) how to turn one brand of these confections into a drink! I realized then, that I did not fully appreciate the possibilities of bon-gashi, and I plan to rectify this before the next O-Bon comes round.

my twist on mizu-manju

2009-08-06T18:49:00.000-07:00

In the heat of summer, the Japanese prefer to eat food that is both cool to the eyes and cool to the palate. A typical summer wagashi is the mizu-manju (literally "water-dumpling"), which is essentially a small ball of sweet bean paste enclosed in a soft, transparent coating made from arrowroot (kuzu). The delicate sweetness and the smooth, luminous coating, which appears almost liquid, cools the throat and the senses. There are many variations of mizu-manju these days, and I experimented with a version of my own, using powdered gelatin.

It began with my longing to represent our hydrangeas in the form of wagashi. Hydrangeas in Japan most commonly come in shades of blue or purple. But we have a highly unusual hydrangea bush that produces white blossoms. In late summer, the edges of the white blossoms begin to take on a pink tinge. My background in etegami influenced the shape I wanted my wagashi to have. I envisioned lots of pink-tinged squares clustered together around a core of an. This is the result of my first attempt.

basic ingredients for 2 ~4 confections:
sweet bean paste (I used smooth koshi-an), 2 tablespoons.
powdered unflavored gelatin, enough to gel 2 cups liquid.
clear not-overly-sweet liquid (I used a clear, sugar-free, cherry-flavored soft drink), 2 cups.
raspberry jam or any red-colored jam or jelly, 1/2 teaspoon.

Follow gelatin package directions to gel 2 cups liquid, but add up to two teaspoons extra powder for making a stiffer gelatin than usual. Pour the gelatin-liquid mixture into a container large enough to permit it to gel into a sheet about 1/4 inch thick. Chill it in the refrigerator. Meanwhile, shape the an into two large (or four small) balls and chill them too. When the gelatin mixture has solidified, use a sharp knife to make horizontal and vertical cuts and turn it all into small cubes. Toss the cubes with 1/2 teaspoon raspberry jam, so that it is more or less evenly distributed among the cubes. (A little unevenness can be attractive too.)

To make 2 large confections: Place a square of plastic wrap on a flat surface. Fill the center of the wrap with 1/2 of the gelatin cubes. Place a ball of an in the center so that it is surrounded by gelatin cubes. Then pull up the four corners of the plastic wrap and twist at the top so that the gelatin and an are pressed into a tight bundle. Fasten the top of the bundle with a rubber band or twist-tie. Do the same with the remaining half of gelatin cubes and an. Dip the bundles into a bowl of room-temperature water for 30 or more seconds, so that the cubes have a chance to re-adhere to one another. Remove the bundles from the water and chill them in the refrigerator for an hour or more. When ready to serve, cut the rubber band off the bundle and gently separate the plastic wrap from the solidified dumpling.

I was satisfied with the results, especially considering this was my first try. The dumpling was a fair (if abstract) representation of my pink-tinged hydrangea. And more importantly, the confection had an understated sweetness, a smooth slippery texture, and the visual coolness that a summer wagashi must have. I encourage you to try your own variations on this theme.

ichigo-daifuku

2009-07-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

Daifuku is a soft ball of mochi filled with an (sweet bean jam), and ichigo-daifuku is daifuku with a whole fresh strawberry in the center. I can take or leave ordinary daifuku, but ichigo-daifuku is one of my favorite Japanese sweets. The refreshing sweet/sourness of fresh strawberries is a perfect balance to an, and it turns daifuku into a completely different taste experience. Chill it in the refrigerator a while before serving for a delightfully refreshing hot-weather treat. The super simple recipe I've posted below uses mochi made from brown rice, rather than white. White mochi is more traditional, makes a smoother daifuku, and is probably easier to find, so go ahead and use that. I like brown rice mochi because of the higher nutritional value, the coarser texture, and the deeper rice flavor.

Ingredients for four servings:
brown rice (genmai) mochi, four cakes of about 50 grams each
commercially available an, 120 grams (about 1/2 cup)
4 fresh whole strawberries, stems removed
a small amount of cornstarch or katakuriko

You'll also need a microwave oven and a suribachi mortar (but I will suggest a substitute for the mortar later)

Cover the mochi with hot water in a microwave-safe dish for 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile, divide the an into 4 equal portions. When ten minutes has passed, drain the water from the dish of mochi, add two new tablespoons of hot water, and place the dish in microwave. Microwave the mochi (uncovered) for 3~4 minutes at 500W. Place the softened mochi in a suribachi (ribbed mortar) and beat it with a wooden pestle till the mochi is soft and smooth. Place the doughy mochi on wax paper dusted with katakuriko or corn starch. Divide the mochi into 4 equal mounds. Take a mound in your hand and placing it in the palm of your hand, pull and press gently to flatten it into a circle. Place a portion of an in the center of the circle, and place a strawberry on top of the an. Pull the edges of the circle gently up to surround and wrap the filling. Pat into a ball and place on a serving dish.

Variations: Substitute raspberries, blueberries, or any fresh fruit that is sweet/sour and makes a pretty color contrast with the dark an filling.

If you don't have a mortar, you might try putting the softened mochi in a sturdy zip-lock bag and kneading it with the heel of your hand till the mochi turns into a doughy mass. For more photos click here.

kinako nejiri

2009-07-14T20:03:00.000-07:00

After a class trip to Kyoto in my last year of high school, I developed a craving for suhama dango, the small, very sweet, colorful balls skewered three to a toothpick, packed in gift boxes, and sold at the Kyoto train station for tourists to take back home. I didn't know what they were made of, and this became a problem for me years later when I was in the US, dreadfully homesick for the flavors of home. A childhood friend asked me if she could send me something from Japan, and I described those balls the best I could. But she lived nowhere near Kyoto, and what arrived from her a month later didn't look anything like the colorful balls I had been craving. They were dull-colored flat strips of some kind of dried dough, twisted like a ribbon. When I ate it, though, it had the same taste and texture I remembered. This was how I discovered Kinako Nejiri. I checked the listed ingredients, and there were only two: Mizu-ame (rice syrup) and kinako (soybean flour). I realized then, that the colorful balls were essentially the same thing, just rolled into balls rather than rolled out and cut into strips.

ingredients for 4 servings:
Mizu-ame (rice syrup), 4 Tablespoons
Kinako (soybean flour), 60 grams (3/4 cup) and more for dusting

Place the syrup (it has an odd consistency somewhere between a liquid and a solid) in a heatproof dish, and soften it by heating it in the microwave for one minute. Stir half of the soybean flour into the syrup with a wooden spoon or spatula. When that is mixed in well, add the rest of the soybean flour little by little till the dough becomes stiff enough to roll out on a soyflour-dusted board with a rolling pin to about a quarter-inch in thickness. Add more flour if necessary to get the right stiffness. Cut into rectangles (3/4 inch x 1&1/4 inch), then twist gently like a ribbon. Coat the ribbons with some more soybean flour and store in an airtight container in a cool place.

There is green kinako and yellowish kinako, depending on whether it was made from green soybeans or yellow soybeans. I mixed up two batches of dough, one with the green powder, and one with the yellow. I made the ribbons with part of the dough, and balls with the rest. I also rolled some of the balls in black sesame seed for variety. If you won't be eating it up within a few days, freeze it. If you want it sweeter, roll the balls in granulated sugar, and/or add some sugar to the dough. The stuff they sell at the Kyoto station is much sweeter than my version, and they obviously use food coloring for the bright colors. I have tried this recipe using honey in place of the rice syrup, but I felt the honey taste was too pronounced.

Other variations could include adding cocoa powder or ground sesame to the soybean flour, and coating the strips or balls with colored sugar crystals. I rolled my kinako dough a little too thin, as the photo shows, and must try to make it thicker next time. Refrigeration helps stiffen it, and so will leaving it out to air for a while. But beware letting it go uncovered for too long. For more photos of this recipe, click here.

shiratama an'mitsu

2009-07-10T22:33:00.000-07:00

This is a nostalgia-inducing, cool, and colorful summer dessert, greatly loved over the generations. An'mitsu is basically a scoop of sweet bean paste with colorful (often canned) fruit, syrup, and sometimes cubes of kanten (gelatin made from agar-agar). Shiratama are small round dumplings made from shiratama-ko (glutenous rice flour). Together it becomes Shiratama An'mitsu, and it can be upgraded even further with the addition of a scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Although the shiratama dumplings can be made from just water and glutenous rice flour, I prefer this recipe using tofu instead of water. It gives the dumplings greater depth of flavor and helps prevent hardening when chilled in the refrigerator.

basic ingredients for four servings (amounts are approximate)
silken tofu (kinugoshi), 200 grams (7 oz)
shiratama flour (shiratama-ko), 120 grams (4 oz)
can of fruit, syrup reserved.
sweet bean paste (an), 200 grams (7 oz)

If the tofu is sold loosely packed in water, drain the water and rinse the tofu gently. Place the tofu in a medium-sized bowl with the shiratama flour, and knead it together till well-blended and soft, but firm. In Japan, the right consistency for dumplings is often described as "the firmness of your earlobes." Keep some shiratama flour in reserve, and add it little by little till you get the right consistency.

Take spoonfuls of the dough and, using your fingers, roll them into one-inch balls. Flattening them a little will help them cook through faster. Place the balls in a pot of boiling water. Wait for 1~2 minutes after the balls rise to the surface before scooping them out and transferring them to a bowl of very cold water. When the balls have chilled, place several in a cool-looking glass dish. Top the dumplings with a scoop of sweet bean paste, and scatter fruit decoratively around everything. Spoon the reserved syrup over all. If you want, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream to the dish.

Variations: Add various things to the shiratama dough for both flavor and color. (1) For the version pictured above, I divided the dough, added crushed red perilla (shiso) leaves to one half, and powdered mugwort (yomogi) to the other half. This resulted in half pinkish shiso-flavored dumplings, and half green yomogi-flavored dumplings. (2) Add powdered green tea (matcha) to the dough for a different version of green-colored dumplings. (3) You can play with the syrup ingredients too. Kuromitsu, a dark syrup similar to molasses, can replace the syrup from the canned fruit. To see a version of shiratama an'mitsu that I made during cherry-blossom season, click here.

dorayaki

2009-07-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

Dorayaki is one of the most accessible of Japanese sweet snacks. Dora means "gong" in Japanese, so the name of this sweet probably comes from its shape. If you are a fan of Japanese TV anime, you, along with every Japanese child who grew up between 1970 and 2005, know that dorayaki is the favorite treat of Doraemon, the cat-shaped robot from the future. In Japan, dorayaki is inexpensive and vendors can be found everywhere. But it is easy enough to make at home. Essentially, it consists of two small pancakes stuck together with a filling of sweet bean paste (an), but there are endless variations. Here is a recipe I use for basic dorayaki. It makes enough for 6~8 pairs of pancakes that are approximately 4 inches in diameter:

fresh eggs, 2 large
sugar, 2/3 cup
honey, 1 tablespoon
mirin, 1 tablespoon
baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon
flour, 1 &1/2 cup
water, 5 tablespoons

commercially sold sweet bean paste (an)

Whisk the eggs and sugar together till blended. Add honey and mirin and whisk some more. Sift together the baking soda and flour, then gradually add to the rest of the ingredients in about three batches, stirring gently with a spatula or wooden spoon till mixed. Add the water last, one tablespoon at at time.

Spoon the batter onto a heated, lightly oiled hotplate or frying pan. Don't crowd the pan. Cook the pancakes over medium heat until the top surface is covered with bubbles and the edges get dry-looking (about 2 minutes). Turn the pancake over and let cook for 1 minute longer. Remove cooked pancakes to plate and keep making pancakes till the batter is used up. The honey and mirin in the batter makes the pancake turn dark brown where it touches the pan, but that is normal. Be careful not to overcook it though. It will get tough.

When the pancakes are cooled, spread bean paste over the rough side of one pancake and cover it with another so that the smooth glossy side of the pancake is facing out. Although in a pinch, you could use ordinary pancake batter for dorayaki, it won't taste the same.

Variations: (1) Add things to the pancake batter. I've succeeded with powdered yomogi (mugwort), crushed green tea leaves, and dried ume (pickled plum) granules. Coarser additions, like chopped walnuts, make it difficult to make an even pancake. (2) Save the coarser ingredients for adding to the filling. Besides walnuts, chopped sweet chestnuts make a tasty addition to the an filling. So do some fruits like strawberries and cherries (sweet&sour goes well with an), or chopped candied citrus peel (sweet&bitter goes well with an too).

Serve this sweet snack with strong green tea.

daigaku imo

2009-06-28T00:33:00.000-07:00

The following recipe is my own twist on a traditional sweet potato treat called daigaku-imo ("college potatoes," so called because of its association with Tokyo University), which is basically deep-fried chunks of sweet potato coated with sweet syrup. In the traditional version, the sweet potatoes are cut up into large cubes or triangular chunks, and nothing is added besides a syrup and perhaps a sprinkling of black sesame seeds. In my version, the potatoes are cut into sticks, with nuts and dried fruit added for variety in texture and color.

ingredients:
Satsuma Sweet Potato, 1 large
oil for deep-frying

for the syrup:
water, 1/3 cup
sugar, 1/4 cup
butter, 1 or 2 Tablespoons
fresh ginger root, 1/2 teaspoon grated
dried seedless dates, 5 or 6, chopped
walnuts, 2 Tablespoons, chopped

Scrub the potato clean, and wipe dry with a clean kitchen towel, but do NOT peel. Cut off the two tough ends. Slice the rest of the potato into somewhat thick-ish matchsticks.

Heat enough oil in a medium-sized, deep-sided pot to cover the sweet potato sticks. Make sure to fry the potato sticks in batches that won't pile upon each other in the pot. Fry for about 3 minutes, or until the potato sticks are tender but not soft. Test with one or two to make sure. They have to still be tough enough to survive being tossed in the syrup without breaking. Take the sweet potato sticks out of the oil, drain them on a rack, then spread them out on paper towels.

Meanwhile put all the sauce ingredients into a clean frying pan or pot and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer the sauce until it thickens and gets syrupy. Turn off the heat. Immediately toss the fried sweet potato sticks into the syrupy mixture and stir gently so as to coat the potatoes thoroughly. Turn potato stick mixture out onto a serving dish. As it cools, the syrupy coating on the sweet potato sticks hardens a little like candy. The ginger gives it a really nice depth of flavor.

Daigaku-imo, like its main ingredient the sweet potato, is associated with winter, when it tastes best eaten hot. But this mixture freezes well, and makes a delicious summer snack when served barely thawed along with a glass of cold mugicha (barley tea).

stuffed dried persimmons

2009-06-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

Fresh persimmons are delicious too, but dried persimmons are one of my absolutely favorite winter treats. When dried, the flavor and sweetness of a persimmon gets concentrated, the outside gets leathery, and the inside gets gooey. It makes a perfect snack just as it is, but if you go to just a tiny bit of trouble, you end up with a fancy-looking dessert suitable for serving on special occasions.

Where I live, fresh persimmons come on the market in late fall~ early winter. The dried persimmons start appearing about a month later. For this year's New Year's buffet, I decided to stuff some dried persimmons for a picturesque dessert. I found some that were still connected by their woody stems to the rope they had hung from to dry. I removed the stems, and cut the fruit in half. Then I pressed my thumb in the middle of each half to make a deep indentation and stretched the persimmon out a bit. Into each indentation I spooned a mixture of cream cheese, chopped candied yuzu peel, and chopped walnuts. If you can't find candied yuzu peel, use candied orange peel instead, but it won't be quite the same.

Variation: You can also replace the cream cheese with shiro-an (white sweet bean paste), if available. This combination is more in line with traditional wagashi and makes a very sweet dessert that complements green tea-- especially bitter matcha.

super simple lima bean kinton

2009-06-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at homemade wagashi was "Lima Bean Kinton," a recipe I found in the Sunset Oriental Cook Book when I was still in college. Decades and dozens of house-moves later, this book is still part of my cookbook collection. Kinton is a confection made from any one (or combination) of certain starchy foods. The most familiar version of kinton is made from chestnuts and sweet potatoes, one that is especially popular in the late fall and at New Years. The following recipe using lima beans is straight from the aforementioned cookbook, and is difficult to screw up. It's a good recipe for gaining a bit of confidence.

Lima Bean Kinton:

1 can (1lb) lima beans, undrained
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
green food coloring

Remove skins from lima beans and mash beans. (Or press beans through a coarse wire strainer to remove skins.) Place bean pulp and liquid, salt, and sugar in a small saucepan. Stirring often, cook over medium heat until mixture forms a ball and begins to pull away from sides of pan, about 20 minutes. Cool. Force mixture through a wire strainer or food mill. Mix in enough coloring to make a bright green. Roll mixture into 12 small balls. Let dry uncovered at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours. Then wrap loosely in plastic film and refrigerate until serving time if desired. Makes six servings.

You can also substitute green peas for the lima beans, which results in a simple version of endo-mame kinton (green pea kinton). The accompanying photo shows the green pea version.

By the way, the recipe says to "wrap loosely in plastic film," but if your kinton mixture is stiff enough, you might try twisting the wrap around the paste with enough firmness to shape it like a Hershey's Kiss with grooves pressed into it by the wrinkles in the film. Many wagashi shops form their kinton this way, and the resulting shape (chakin, or "tied-in-a-handkerchief" shape) is a familiar one to kinton fans.

my wagashi pilgrimage

2009-06-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

Wagashi, traditional Japanese confectionery, has been a part of my life since childhood. My mother neither made it nor purchased it, but guests to our home often brought gift boxes of wagashi, and of course, it was often served along with tea when I visited the homes of my friends or neighbors. In those days western-style desserts and British teas were rarer, more expensive, more "classy," and therefore more valued by shallow youths such as myself. So it wasn't until I went to the US for college, in a mid-western town with no Japanese food sources to speak of, that I developed a strong craving for wagashi. This craving grew all the stronger because I could not readily satisfy it. This was the start of my adventures in making credible wagashi with easy-to-locate ingredients. I even remember the very first wagashi I made from a simple recipe I found in the Sunset Oriental Cook Book (c. 1970) published by Sunset Magazine. I will post that recipe later. For now, suffice it to say that the experience was the start of a whole new respect and admiration for the food craft of wagashi. Some years ago, I got it into my head to pursue certification as a wagashi shokunin (wagashi artisan), but it never happened. It turned out to be one-too-many commitments in an already over-committed life, and I settled for dabbling in it as a hobby. If you are a fan of wagashi, I hope you visit this site often. Join me as I explore the world of wagashi.