Just Hungry

Even if I am Japanese, I don’t like all Japanese food. And I must confess that I don’t like a lot of traditional Japanese sweets that are based on sweetened beans. For the most part they are way too sweet for me, and if I make them for myself I’m always adjusting the sweetness level, as with my ohagi or botamochi.

Mitarashi dango, however, are my absolute favorite traditional sweet. They are not really that sweet really - that shiny caramel colored sauce (which is called mitarashi sauce) is sweet and savory at the same time. It goes perfectly with the bland, slightly chewy dango or dumplings. (Dango is the name for unfilled solid dumplings.)

You may see the dango just plained boiled more often than not. But grilling the dango makes them so much better, in my opinion.

2 different rice flours

2 kinds of rice flours are used here. The combination makes a dumpling that is chewy and bouncy but not too sticky.

Joushinko is made from regular Japanese rice (uruchi-mai).

Shiratamako is sweet or glutinous rice flour, or mochiko, mixed with a little corn starch or potato starch. If you can’t find shiramako, you can use mochiko with about 1 tablespoon of cornstarch or potato starch flour added. You can find all of these flours at a Japanese grocery store. You might be able to find them at a health food store too, since rice flour is more popular nowadays as a gluten-free thickening agent for sauces.

Really, the hardest part of this whole recipe is finding the two rice flours. The rest is a breeze.

Recipe: Mitarashi Dango

This amount makes about 25 dumplings (5 skewers).

For the dango (dumplings):

• 1 cup (220ml) joushinko
• 1/2 cup (110ml) shiratamako, or mochiko plus 1 Tbs. of cornstarch or potato starch
• 1 1/2 cups (265ml) or so of hot tap water (water that’s hot if you put your hand in, but doesn’t burn you)
• A pot of boiling salted water

For the mitarashi sauce:

• 1/4 cup (55 ml) sugar
• 1/2 cup (105ml) water, with 1 Tbs. cornstarch or potato starch or arrowroot dissolved in it
• 1/8 cup (28 ml) soy sauce
• 1 Tbs. mirin
• 1/2 Tbs. rice vinegar

Equipment needed:

• a pot for boiling the dumplings
• a bowl for mixing the dough
• the same bowl or another one to cool the dumplings
• a grill or grill pan
• a small pan to cook the sauce
• bamboo or wooden skewers

Mix together the joushinko and the hot water. Add the shiratamako. Mix until it forms a soft dough that feels a bit dry to the touch. It’s a very pleasant dough to handle.

Divide the dough into 25 pieces (you can do this by forming a long log and cutting it, or just divide it up in the bowl and eyeball it). Make each piece into a little round ball. It doesn’t have to be perfect in shape - a little bumpiness is fine.

Bring a pot of water to a boil and add salt, as you would for boiling pasta. Add the dumplings a few at a time to the pot. After a few minutes, the dumplings will come floating to the surface. Boil for a further 3-4 minutes, then scoop out with a slotted spoon or similar.

Immediately dump the dumplings into a bowl of cold water.

Put the dumplings on skewers, 4 or 5 per skewer. Try to pierce the dumplings in the middle.

Grill the skewered dumplings on a grill or a grill pan, turning several times, until nice burn marks form over them.

Here are some finished grilled dango skewers.

While you’re grilling the dumplings, make the mitarashi sauce. Combine all the ingredients for the sauce in a small pan and bring to a boil. Cook until the sauce has thickened. The more it cools, the more viscous it will get. You can make the sauce in advance too.

Pour the sauce over the still warm skewered dumplings. They are best eaten right away, but you can make them in advance too, as long as you bring them to room temperature before eating.

Variations

You may have seen these with a sweet azuki bean paste on them. I don’t like them that way, but if you do, you can use this tsubuan recipe, perhaps mashing up the beans a bit more to make it smoother.

The dumplings can also be eaten grilled and just brushed with soy sauce. Apparently, this is the way they were eaten until sometime in the 20th century. (Mitarashi dango as we know them now were invented in the 1930s at a dango shop in the Kansai area.)

Plain maple syrup is a nice sauce for these too, if not too traditional.