moon-viewing festival (more rabbit manju)

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!

kuri kinton

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

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.

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

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.