How to Make Japanese Dango：Sticky rice ball dessert with Sweet soy sauce

Spring has come to New Zealand！

Cherry blossom blooming and warm whether… perfect day for “Hanami”, meaning cherry blossom viewing picnic!

Often in Japan, we eat “Dango”, rolled bite-size rice cake on skewers, as sweets complementary to cherry blossom.

So after seeing all the cherry blossom last week, I decided to cook up some Dango on skewers.

Main ingredient, glutinous rice flour was available from local Park’nSave supermarket, in Auckland, New Zealand.

Ingredients for making Dango

In traditional Japanese cooking, dango is made from Dango flour, which is a mix of glutinous rice flour and non-glutinous rice flour.

This time round though, I made dango from 100% glutinous rice flour.

They are also easier to make. This way, resulting dango is softer and stickier than traditional method.

What we need:

For Dango

• Glutinous rice flour
• Water
• Large size pot
• Bowl
• Spoon
• Skewer or chopstick (to stick dango with)

Mitarashi sauce

• Soy sauce
• Sugar
• Corn flour

Red bean paste (Anko) also goes well with dango. These can be purchased from Asian supermarket or made from azuki beans.

Glutinous rice flour was purchased from a local Park'n Save. These were located in the international section.

This is the glutinous rice flour I used this time. They are produced in Thailand.

1 bag contains 400g of glutinous rice flour and only cost NZD1.70. Cheap!

There were two similarly labelled bags of rice flour; blue label and green label.

We purchased the green label bag because the ingredients described was “glutinous rice”, which is more suitable for making dango.

Nutritional and ingredient information on the package.

In Japan, you make dango from either “dango flour” which is a mix of glutinous rice flour and non-glutinous rice flour, or “shiratama-flour” which is 100% glutinous rice flour that has been washed in water.

“Shiratama-flour” is more expensive due to added processing process of washing glutinous rice flour in water, and results in really soft, sticky dango.

I used the same method for making dango from “shiratama-flour” with glutinous rice flour above. It worked well and resulted in very soft, yummy dango.

How to make dango (sticky rice-cake ball) from glutinous rice flour

１．First, combine water and glutinous rice flour and mix well.

For each 1 cup of glutinous flour, you need roughly 1/2 cup of water.

However, you need to mix and adjust the amount of water to achieve the right consistency.

Ideal mixture will have smooth texture and can be rolled into ball-shape, without sticking on the hand.

If you add just a little too much water, the mixture will be too soft to make a ball.

Steps for making the mixture right is to;

add water –>  mix really well –> if too powdery, add a table spoon of water –> mix well… repeat adding another table spoon of water…..

Mixing well in between is very important.

Even when you initially feel  “Oh it is so powdery, perhaps I should add some water?”, after mixing really well, the moisture will spread through the mixture and make it moist.

So don’t be hasty to add more water, before mixing and kneading well.

Even after kneading, if you feel it will not become one big mass, then add one table spoon of water at a time, and mix again.

In process of kneading. There was not enough water so I added another table spoon of water.

Ideal consistency to achieve is that the mixture is firm and smooth, but does not stick to your hands.

Even when you squeeze with your hand….

Mixture will not stick to your hand.

２．Once right consistency is achieved, roll into bite-size balls.

Roll mixtures to make a bite-size balls. It is quite fun part of making dango.

If you have children with you, get them to help you roll small dango balls.

Note if they will become soft and squishy after cooked. So if you are concerned about choking hazards, roll them into small sizes, or slightly squash the ball-shaped dango to make slightly flattened shape.

３．Boil a pot full of water, and cook dango-balls for a few minutes.

Fill up a medium size-pot with water and bring it to boil.

Once hot water is boiling hard, lower the heat to medium strength.

One by one, gently place dango-balls into the boiling water.

They will all sink to the bottom of the pot first. As they are cooked, they will slowly start floating to the top of boiling water.

Half of dango balls are starting to float to the surface.

All floating on the surface.

４．Boil for 1-2 minutes then move them to cold water

Once your dango balls have floated to the top of boiling water, cook further 1-2 minutes, and they are ready to be taken off the heat.

Just wait till all of dango balls are floating, then wait for 1-2 minutes. In the mean time, prepare a bowl of icy water.

Then scoop dango balls and move them into the ball with icy water to cool.

You only need several ice cubes in a bowl, as you only want to cool dangos and not freeze them.

５．Dango balls are cooked and ready!

Drain icy water and dish up your dango balls with your favorite toppings.

Topping for your Dango: Mitarashi (Sweet soy)? Anko (Azuki bean paste)?

So your dango is finished and ready to be served with your favorite topping.

One idea is to simply sprinkle sugar or sugar-mixed with soy powder over dango.

Alternatively you can prepare other toppings; this time, I prepared Mitarashi (Sweet-soy) and Anko (Azuki red bean paste).

How to make Mitarashi (Sweet Soy) Topping

Mitarashi sauce, or sweet soy sauce for dango can easily be prepared from Soy sauce, sugar and corn flour.

Mix 2 Tbs soy sauce and 3 Tbs white sugar, 1 Tbs of corn flour with 80ml water.

Then repeat the following steps：

• Mix really well
• –> heat in a microwave for 30 seconds
• –>  mix well –> heat in a microwave for 30 seconds ….

Repeat this process until the mixture becomes transparent and thickened.

You may need to adjust the amount of corn flour to achieve right consistency to suit your preference.

As for Anko (Azuki bean paste), You can either buy pre-made azuki bean paste, or you could try to make yourself.

How to make Anko will be explained in different article, though.

Decorating Dango with Skewers

Now you are ready to decorate dango, you can stick them in bamboo skewers.

Cut a few millimeter off the tip of skewers to make the sharp ends more blunt. (Safer for children)

Just by being on skewers, they look yummier and more professional, don’t they!?

Mitarashi(Sweet soy) dango, finished!

Anko dango (on chopsticks) ready!

Dango made from Glutinous Rice Flour were very Tasty!

This was the first time I used Thailand glutinous rice flour rather than Japanese rice flour, but it was a great success.

Just as a reminder again, the rice flour used was the green packet with Glutinous rice as the main ingredients.

Kids loved dango too!!

Eating Mitarashi-dango and Anko-dango, it feels as if we never left Japan.... Even more perfect if served with a cup of green tea!

In the future, it would also be great to serve dango with some soy-powder (= Kinako) and brown sugar syrup, as well.

(These can be prepared from pan-fried soy beans and brown sugar, respectively)

This time we used glutinous rice flour as the main ingredient, but you can also mix some glutinous rice flour and non-glutinous rice flour to make more firm, hard dango.

Related Articles:

Enjoyed cherry blossom? Enjoy cherry leaves too!

How to Make Kara-Age, Japanese Style Deep Fried Chicken

How to make Mochi, the Sticky-Rice Cake! 

　

Japanese Matcha Set

Japanese Homestyle Cooking

Enjoyed cherry blossom? Enjoy cherry leaves too!

Spring is here in New Zealand.

Until about last week, cherry blossoms around Auckland were in full bloom. So beautiful!

But when cherry blossom flowers finish and trees start to learn green…. you might wan to go back to cherry blossom tree again.

Because if you want to make edible pickled cherry leaves, now is your chance….

How to Make Kara-Age, Japanese Style Deep Fried Chicken

My husband and children love Japanese-style chicken, like chicken Kara-Age (Deep fried chicken) and Teriyaki-chicken. Few nights ago I made some Kara-age chicken at home. Here is how we made them. 

Making Kara-age chicken

To make Kara-age Chicken, you can purchase seasoning flour from Japan mart and other asian supermarket if you wish. Or, you could save some money by just using soy sauce and other locally available ingredients.

Ingredients for Kara-Age Chicken

What you need:

• Soy sauce (Japanese one)
• Standard flour
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Chicken of your favorite portion
• Oil for deep frying

This time, we purchased about 600g of some NZ chicken nibbles from a local supermarket.  

Chicken nibbles were on special!

We also need some soy sauce, ginger, garlic, pepper and flour. As coating for the chicken, the regular method is to use standard flour. You could also make it with rice flour, or corn flour if you prefer gluten free.

If you use corn-flour, the texture of the coating would turn out to be quite hard compared to when you use standard flour. Some people prefer hard, crunchy coating. If you use rice flour, it tends to result in thin and soft coating, but taste nice either way.

If you wish, you could also try mixing flour and corn-flour, or rice flour, to get right texture of coating for your taste. I normally just using standard flour. As for oil, we used cheap canola oil purchased from a local supermarket.

Preparation

As a preparation, we will marinate chicken in soy sauce. Ideally, this preparation should be done several hours before you cook and serve the Kara-age chicken, to give it enough time for chicken to be enriched with flavoring.

If you are planning to serve Kara-age chicken for dinner, do the preparation in the morning or lunchtime. You could even do preparation on the previous day and marinate chicken overnight. This time, I prepared my chicken after lunch and deep fried them for dinner.

First, chop chicken into bite sizes. I am using chicken nibbles so there was no need to chop them. If you are using chicken breast or chicken thigh, chop them into size that is easy to eat in 2 or 3 bites. Make sure they are only ~2cm thick or so. If you have a big chunk, it becomes more difficult and takes longer to fry.

Next, you need about 3cm of ginger and 2-3 cloves of garlic.

Grind both ginger and garlic. If you don’t have a grinder, chop them very finely.

Grind, grind…

Place chicken, ginger and garlic into a plastic bag. I am using cheap medium size freezer bag from homebrand.

Add 3 table spoons of Japanese soy sauce into the bag. This time, I am using Kikkoman soy sauce that is available from the international food section of a local countdown (also other from other supermarkets).

Tight the end of the plastic bag, and mix the content lightly. Place it in another plastic bag, double-bagging it just in case, and right the end again. Place in the fridge and marinate until cooking time.

Preparation finished!

Add Flour Just Before Frying

When you are ready to deep fry your chicken and serve for a meal, open the plastic bag with chicken and add about half~2/3 cup of standard flour (or any other flour of your choice) into the plastic bag. Hold the end of bag and mix the content in the bag.

Ready to Fry!

Deep Fry in Oil

If you have a deep fryer of some sort, you could certainly try using it to fry your chicken. I am using regular flying pan below. Either way, be very careful as cooking oil will heats up well above 100 degree Celsius. Do not leave kitchen while you are using oil. Definitely do not let children run around in the kitchen.

Put oil (~2cm) into a flying pan and turn up the heat to medium strength. Wait till oil heats up. If you sprinkle a pinch of flour into the oil and it sinks or stays still, oil is still way too cold.

If a pinch of flour sprinkled quickly bubbles and floats around in the oil, then the oil has heated up. If the oil starts releasing oily smoke and you can smell it, then it is too hot. Just turn it off for your safety, wait for it to cool and try again.

Take out coated chicken pieces from the plastic bag. Place one chicken into heated oil at a time. Gently place them so oil will not splash.

Oil around chicken piece should quickly start bubbling if the oil is sufficiently warm. If it doesn’t, the oil is probably still too cold. Just wait and watch as the oil heats up and bubbling up around the first piece of chicken, before adding another one.

You can see oil bubbling.

Keep the heat on medium, and let chicken be fried in oil for 5-10 minutes. If your chicken brown too fast, your oil is too hot.

Again, do not leave from the pan and oil while you are cooking. As it cooks, the coating on the bottom side of the chicken should start to harden and brown. At the same time, you will start to see a bit of red juice coming up on the top side of the chicken. When you see this, wait till the bottom side browns then flip it around to cook the top side.

On the left chicken piece, you can see the red juice coming up. Flip!

Once you flip chicken pieces, cooked, browned coating side is now facing up.

Cook for further 5-10 minutes, until the other side is crispy and brown. Try inserting a chopstick through the chicken piece. If clear juice comes out, the inside of chicken is cooked. If the juice that comes out is still pink, lower the heat, flip chicken again and cook some more. 

Once fully cooked, the juice from inside chicken should be clear, and chicken has shrunk in size from the beginning. If you are unsure, pick up a piece of chicken and cut in half to make sure it is cooked right through. Uncooked chicken poses risks of salmonella food poisoning so make sure your chicken is properly cooked.

Tips for Making the Crispy

When you are making deep-fried food, there are a few tips for making them crispy.

First, turn up the heat a bit so the oil is at higher temperature and really bubbling, right before removing chicken from the oil.

Quickly remove chicken pieces from the oil. When you do this, lift up the majority of a chicken piece from oil, but leave one end of the chicken piece still in contact with the oil. Hold this position for 2-3 seconds, then remove them from oil and place on a paper towel.

Apparently, above step helps cooking oil to be dragged back into the pan, leaving chicken crispy. This methods can be applied to other deep fried food too. Place all chicken pieces on the metal rack or paper towel to remove the excess oil.

Some finished pieces… yum!

Kara-age is finished! Enjoy as they are, or with some freshly chopped cabbage, rice and miso soup if you want a Japanese-style meal!

Authentic! 

How to Mochi- Sticky rice cake! Part 3

So now I have got both sweet rice and bread maker, it is time to give it a go at making mochi!

Click here for previous articles →　Part 1 and Part 2 

Let’s start making mochi! 

To summarize, below are things you need to make mochi:

• Mochi rice – today we are using Daichi Sweet Rice from California
• Bread maker (if your bread maker does not have sticky rice function, then you need both bread maker and a rice cooker)
• Corn flower (we will use it when we roll the mochi into small size)
• Chopping board (we will roll our mochi on this)

Step 1: Washing Mochi Rice

We need to first wash mochi rice with water. A good amount to cook mochi in a standard size home bread maker is 2 or 3 cups of rice at a time. Be careful not to be rough when washing rice to prevent them from cracking.

Measure 2 cups of rice and put in a bowl. Pour plenty of water from a tap into the container with rice, and stir gently.

In the first wash, the water will quickly turn cloudy so discard this water, carefully not to lose any rice. You do not need to drain completely. Just remove the majority of water and immediately pour new water and start stirring – this is the second wash.

Repeat washing rice for 4~6 times until the water no longer turns cloudy compared to the beginning. Drain the water, this time properly using a net or basket.

Step 2: Place Rice and Water into the Bread Maker Container

Once rice is drained, place rice into the bread maker container. Make sure the wing piece of bread maker is set right at the bottom of the container before placing rice over it. For two cups of rice, add 1 cup of water.

The strength (or stickiness) of mochi can be changed by adjusting amount of water for how much rice you are using. If you add more, like 2 cups of water per 2 cups of rice, then you will have thinner mochi. Softer and easier to eat/swallow so this might work better for some people.

Step 3: Start the “Sticky Rice” Menu

Set the bread maker cooking container into the bread maker machine, then close the lid of the bread maker. Choose “Sticky Rice” Menu on the Bread Maker, then press Start button.

On my bread maker from Sheffield, it is number 17 menu for sticky rice.

Now Bread Maker is Making Mochi!!

Initially, the home bakery slowly warms up without stirring. So there is no sound. After about 20 minutes after starting the “Sticky Rice” menu, the stirring piece started to rotate and you could hear the sound of moving motor.

I found it to be a bit noisy at the start, but I got quickly used to the noise. It is not bad at all….for a bread maker that was so reasonably priced.

Once stirring starts, sticky rice slowly start to get pasty. After about 40 minutes, you could see that it is a big mass of squashed rice. It is looking really good!

After one hour has passed, it nearing the end of “Sticky Rice” program. The content is looking smooth like it should be.

Step 4: Shaping Mochi

Once the program finishes, the bread maker makes a loud beeping noise to let me know. Get a chopping board and corn starch ready. Sprinkle corn starch over the chopping board. Also have some corn starch in a bowl nearby ready to be used.

Corn flour on the shopping board!

On a corn-starch-coated chopping board, pour the content of the bread maker. Be careful not to burn, both the container and the content are really hot! Let it cool down for a while until it is at a temperature you can touch.

Coat both your hands with plenty of corn-flour. Pull & tear to make mochi into small, round shape. You must do this while mochi is still warm.

Finished!

If you wish to eat them fresh, you can dip them in soy sauce and wrap them in Nori (seaweed sheet) to taste. 

You can alternatively have Kinako-mochi, by mixing sugar and soy powder in 1:1 ratio and coating a piece of mochi with this mixture.

Storage of Remaining Mochi

You can coat remaining mochi with spare corn-flour and place them in air-tight container.  Store in the fridge for a few week. They will not rot easily but watch out for any mold growth.

Eating Mochi Stored in the Fridge

Heat them in the oven for 10 minutes until the surface of mochi browns and becomes crispy. Crispy surface might break and sticky mochi may come out from inside – this is a good sign of roasted mochi!

ENJOY! Be careful not to choke on a mochi. Mochi can be a choking hazard for elders and children in Japan. They are super yummy but be careful when giving them to children or your elder family members. 

How to make Mochi, the Sticky-Rice Cake Part 2:sweet rice!

See previous article: Part 1

 

In order to make some sticky-rice cake, or Mochi, next step is to find, the main ingredient of mochi; mochi rice!

Main Ingredient : Sweet Rice!

Mochi rice is also called sticky rice, or sweet rice. The unique property of this type of rice is they become very sticky when cooked. They are often found in Asian market.

We live in New Zealand, and we first looked for some sweet rice in the local supermarket. Online search earlier suggested that sweet rice from Sunrice brand is available in some areas, but this did not apply to our area.

Japan Mart Sells Sweet Rice in NZ

So we went to a local Japan Mart, where they sell various food and food ingredients for Japanese cuisine. There are many Japan Mart branches in Auckland, such as in central city, Silvia park, Manukau city, and in Henderson.

You can check their website (https://japanmart.co.nz/onlineshop/) for their products and locations.

We went to the Japan Mart in Henderson, which is located inside Westfield shopping mall. Unfortunately on that day, they did not sell Japanese sweet rice. But a good news for us was that they did sell sweet rice that was produced in United states.

Sweet Rice from U.S.

This is the sweet rice imported from U.S. It is sold as sweet rice, brand name DAICHI. Daichi in Japanese means earth, so I would imagine someone who has knowledge or even a close relationship with Japan is producing this rice in U.S.

Apparently it is produced in California. I wonder if people in U.S. will be able to purchase these cheaper?  It cost us 15 NZD for 2.2㎏ bag.

There were fine, short-grain rice grains packed inside the bag.

Appearance of Sweet Rice and Regular Rice

Sweet rice differs in appearance from regular rice such that, sweet rice grains appear more opaque and white. In comparison, regular rice would appear only half opaque and half transparent.

On this photo above and below, ones on the right are sweet rice, ones on the left are regular sushi rice from SunRice brand.

From appearance, it is reassuring that these are authentic sweet rice, which should produce good mochi. As preparation, I washed three cups of sweet rice with water, then soaked them in water overnight.

We are READY to Make Mochi Now!

Now we are ready to make mochi, with home bakery appliance!

To be continued -> Part 3

How to make Mochi, the Sticky-Rice Cake! Part 1 Getting the appliance

What is Mochi, the Sticky Rice Cake

Do you know Mochi, or sticky rice cake made from glutinous rice. It has a very smooth and when heated, very sticky texture. Mochi is most often consumed around New Year in Japan as part of tradition; however, it is available in Japan from shops throughout the year (see Wikipedia for more information -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi).

Shown here is the photo of traditional mochi-making from Pixabay!

Traditionally in an event called Mochi-tsuki, you use a wooden heavy bowl/stage called Usu, and a wooden hammer named Kine, to mix and beat steamed glutinous rice to make smooth-textured mochi.

 

I want Sticky Rice Cake for kids, a lot of it and for cheap!

My sons both really love mochi. If I heat it up, they will eat them with a bit of soy sauce and nori seaweed for breakfast, or snack. After all, mochi is simply made from rice and nothing more. So it is fat-free, no added sugar, gluten free….. It is a healthy snack.

But now we are living in NZ, we can only find them at Japan Mart… For a bag of 450g mochi, it cost around 10 dollars. I am grateful for Japan Mart for selling it in the first place, but if I can be a bit fussier, I would love to get fresher mochi, in a more cost-effective way.

Making Mochi with a Bread Maker

Good news is, you don’t need traditional Usu and Kine to make mochi. You can actually have all the work done by a modern bread maker! I used a bread maker back in Japan to make fresh own-made mochi, and they were very delicious!

So first step in making mochi at our new home in NZ, is to get a bread maker that can be used. (And don’t attempt to make it by hand. It is possible, however will be too exhausting….)

For using a bread maker to make mochi, there are two options. First is to get a bread maker that has a mochi making function, or “sticky rice cake” menu. This menu will cook and mix mochi rice at the same time to produce mochi in just one step. Back in Japan, many of bread makers sold there came with this function.

If you don’t have a bread maker with a mochi making function, you will be using the “dough making menu” of the bread maker, in combination with another kitchen appliance to cook rice.

Basically, you will cook rice using rice cooker, and while rice is steaming hot, transfer them to bread maker to “dough”. There are number of success stories using this method on the internet, so if you have a bread maker without mochi making function, you can try this second method.

Purchasing a Bread Maker!!

So I first looked for a bread maker that at least can make bread dough, ideally for cheap price.

I was actually searching around for a good sale for a few months…. Then eventually settled with buying one from the online shop 1day (https://www.1-day.co.nz/) , which was selling a bread maker from Sheffield. This is it!

Sheffield Bread Maker

It seems quite a cheap model to start with, I have seen the same model on Trademe for about 60 dollars. This time they were selling it for 39 dollars +delivery, so I was convinced that this is the bottom price for a new bread maker! Even if it is a bit cheap-built, I will be happy for the price!

Waiting for about a week after purchasing it online, it finally arrived to our home…. I could not find much information about this product prior to purchasing, but I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived….

Does it need to be this bulky and large in size…. Well not that. I was pleasantly surprised to see the menu….

Menu no.17 says “Sticky Rice”! This must be the Mochi-making function I was hoping that a bread maker would have ??

I quickly pulled out the instruction manual and had a read, but in a very short sentence, it says no 17 menu“cook sticky rice without burning”….

It doesn’t say anything about mixing and making sticky rice cake. But there is no need for a bread maker to just “cook” rice (we have rice cooker to do that!), so… this must be mocha making function.

I tried selecting to the menu no.17, and the duration of this program was one hour and 12 minutes, quite similar to the bread maker I was using to make mocha in Japan (mocha function was about one hour and 17 minutes then). I am convinced this is the right program!

So unexpectedly I got a cheap bread maker perfectly suited to make mochi with sticky rice function. Next is getting the right ingredient. Mochi rice….

To be continued… to part 2