I'll be straight with you: people unfamiliar with Japanese desserts may find them a little, well, weird. These particular pink confections, which I whipped up last night, are comprised of mochi wrapped around anko—sweet red bean paste—and dusted with nutty kinako, or roasted soybean flour.

Mochi, of course, are the notoriously chewy rice cakes of Japan, traditionally made and eaten with great ceremony for the New Year's holiday—and responsible for several choking deaths every season. I wasn't quite up to spending hours pounding sweet rice with a mallet in a large mortar—the traditional mochi-making technique—so I opted to use mochiko, or sweet rice flour. This method involves mixing the stuff with water and letting it spin around the microwave a few minutes. (When it emerged, steaming and rubbery, I did give it a few half-hearted whacks with a pestle, but I'm not convinced that did anything.)

I began with a manju recipe from one of my trusty Japanese-American church cookbooks, but cut the sugar by two-thirds because the anko provides quite a bit of sweetness. The verdict? Not bad, especially for a first effort.

If you decide to make mochi or manju this year, just keep in mind these mochi-eating tips from the Tokyo Fire Department: cut into small pieces, eat slowly, and don't eat alone. And don't feed to Grandpa.


The following recipe is adapted from A Taste of Heaven: Favorites of Yesterday & Today, published by the West Los Angeles United Methodist Church in 1995


MANJU

1 1/2 cups mochiko
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups water
Food coloring (optional)
Anko (sweet red bean paste)
Kinako (roasted soybean flour)

Mix mochiko with sugar. Add water and food coloring, if using, and mix well. Spray a large microwavable bowl with nonstick cooking spray. Put mochi mixture into bowl and microwave on high for 9-10 minutes. Meanwhile, roll anko into small balls (dusting your hands with mochiko will help prevent sticking). Pound mochi about 20 times when done cooking. On a surface dusted with mochiko, roll mochi into a thick snake. (You may have to let it cool a bit.) Pinch off a section, spread it out, and wrap it around an anko ball, forming a bun shape. Pinch ball closed, with the seam at the bottom. Roll in kinako, and tap off excess.

Technorati Tags: manju, mochi, japan

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