02.13.10
What’s your comforting dessert?
It’s cold, snowy, rainy…. Whatever the winter weather may be in your area, the cold air makes you want to cuddle up in a blanket at home, right? If you can get one thing to complete the coziness, what would it be? For me, it’s Oshiruko! It’s a typical Japanese dessert for winter and it’s sweet azuki (red bean) soup with mochi (rice cake). I know it sounds weird, but it’s very good! I made it again this year, and it brought back some memories from my sweet home, Japan. For mochi, you can either use regular mochi or shiratama-dango. (see “Mochie Feast” from last year’s article for mochi.) Shiratama-dango is a small mochi ball and made out of rice flour – shiratama-ko. I like Shiratama for my Oshiruko experience and here is how I make it.
(You’ll notice when reading below that I don’t provide a recipe with the exact portion of each ingredient. That’s because I’ve never followed recipes so I don’t have them…. I think experimenting with ingredients and flavors are the fun part of cooking. You may get disappointed with a first try like I always have, but I think you’ll improve your sense of curiosity that way. )
Shiratama Dango
It’s very easy to make shiratama dango. The rice flour you need to make this dango is not fine powdery flour. It’s rougher and larger texture and usually in a small 150g bag. A Japanese grocery store should have them.
Just put about a half bag (5-7 servings) of the flour into a bowl and pour water a little by little until you get a “play dough” consistency. The dough cannot be too sticky to your hands like mochi texture. If it gets like this, just add more flour to it. Once you make the dough, make a small 3/4″ ball. Press the middle with your finger to make a “belly” and make it a little flatter.
Put the dango balls into boiled water (medium heat). Once they start to float on the top, they’re ready to get scoped up. You can then eat them with anko, kinako (roasted soy bean powder and sugar mixture from “Mochi Feast”), ice cream or whatever you like.
Oshiruko Soup Base
Cook azuki beans like any other beans until they’re tender – soaking in water overnight helps to cook faster. The only additional step is to drain the water after it’s boiled to remove the bitter taste, and replace with fresh water. Don’t worry about how much water you need right now. The beans will soak up most of the water as you cook and you’ll end up adding more later.
Once the beans are done, add sugar to your liking and a little bit of salt. These are the only ingredients, so play around with your sugar until you get what you want. You cook for an hour or longer at low heat after adding the sugar so that all the water on the top gets dark and azuki color. Some people like more beans and others like more soup. If you like more of the soup part, add water and adjust your sugar. As I like seeing and tasting beans, beans occupy about 2/3 or more of my oshiruko portion.
And finally serve the oshiruko in a small bowl and add shiratamko. A cup of green tea will make your Japanese dessert experience complete!
So, what’s your comforting dessert??
