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Dec 14, 2010

Ingredients

Here is a short list of some of the many ingredients that go into Wagashi.

Red Bean Paste - An(餡)
 

Here are some common types of red bean pastes

Nama- An(生餡) is boiled red beans (azuki beans) that have been strained. There is no sugar added.

Koshi-An(漉し餡) is Nama-An mixed with sugar. It is smooth texture and is often used for Wagashi.

Sarasshi-An(さらし餡) is Nama-An that has been dried and made into a powder. When you use this, you must add water and sugar to make Koshi-An.

Tsubu-An(粒餡) is that small beans is stewed softly without breaking their skins.

Ogura-An  are small, whole beans that have been cooked and then soaked in honey.  The beans are often added to Tsubu-An.



Kanbaiko(寒梅粉)

Kanbaiko is a powder which is made from rice cakes (mochi). You bake the rice cakes without browning them and then grind them into a powder.  That powder is Kanbaiko.


Nerikiri(練り切り)

Nerikiri is a raw sweet that is a mixture of white bean paste and steamed rice flour.
It is soft and a little sticky. You can form Nerikiri into various shapes with special wooden tools or spatulas. When Wagashi craftsmen color Nerikiri, they use food coloring, but traditionally an extract from flowers such as the Cape Jasmine was used.

Nerikiri can be made make into various colors and forms to match the kind of Wagashi that is being made for a particular season.  For example, the flowers below were made from Nerikiri.





Gyuuhi(ぎゅうひ

Gyuuhi is a kind of rice cake (mochi) that is very soft.
Generally, when we make normal rice cakes, we pound steamed rice. However, when we make Gyuuhi, we knead rice flour with water and sugar while heating it in a pot.  The soft inside of the most popular Wagashi in Matsue, Wakakusa, is Gyuuhi.

Wasanbon(和三盆) 

Wasanbon is a traditional Japanese refined sugar. It is made in Kagawa prefecture in Japan and it has a peculiar, characteristic flavor that reminds you of brown sugar.  It is ground to a powder so it dissolves quickly in your mouth.  Wasanbon is made by hand, so it is a very expensive sugar. 

Mochi(餅-rice cake) 

Mochi is usually sold in block slices or dumpling sized circles. At room temperature it's hard but it gets soft when you cook it. 

It is a kind of food made from boiled glutenous rice that has been pounded together.
Rice is a very important food in Japan. Therefore, rice cakes were used in special events and holidays; for example, New Year's Day.  Still today, many Japanese people eat rice cakes during the New Year holiday.


Mochi is easy to make, versatile and when dried will keep for many days.
Rice cakes are not only eaten in sweets, they are often seasoned with soy sauce or soybean flour.  Other varieties include rice cakes with sesame, whole green soybeans or a type of grass called "Yomogi" which is mixed into the mochi.
 

Video Featuring Matsue City

In this video you can see many or the famous places in Matsue.  At the end of the video there is some information about Matsudaira Fumai and his love for Wagashi.
Click the link below to watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf6C5rlfT_E

Oct 26, 2010

Wagashi #5 Manten 満天 Star-filled night sky

Manten



Culture of Manten

Manten is one of the sweet bean jelly type of wagashi.  It’s popular in summer, because its appearance and taste is cool and refreshing.  The name means star-filled night sky in English.

Sweet bean jelly is made of azuki beans and agar.  It is formed into a block which you slice and serve.  Agar in Japanese is KantenKanten is an ingredient mainly used for making Yokan (Sweet bean jelly) and Jelly desserts.  It is made from seaweed which is stewed, frozen and dried.


Visual

This sweet bean jelly, called Manten is made to resemble innumerable stars brightening the summer night sky.  The top of this wagashi is studded with small gold flakes to indicate the twinkling stars and white part looks like clouds.




The blue gradation is very vivid as you can see in the picture below.



It is a very beautiful Wagashi!


Recipe of Manten

We went to Saiundo which sells Manten and asked a wagashi chef how to make Manten.
He told us that It was very difficult to make blue food coloring and timing is important for getting the right appearance.
This wagashi is built in layers upside down.  First, they pour the clear part made of agar into a mold to harden a little.  When it is flipped over, this layer will become the top of the dessert.
Then, at just the right time, they pour blue colored agar and let it harden until the clear top layer and the blue layer firms together completely.  This is how they make a wonderful gradation of color.  


Kanten
There are many other kinds of sweet bean jell wagashi.  The picture below is sweet bean jelly of berries.





Oct 19, 2010

What is Sado?

Sado is the Japanese way to drink powdered green tea called matcha. The green tea in Sado is often taken with wagashi or other Japanese sweets.
The teahouse and teatools are considered art works because these are very beautiful.

Here we are making Matcha.


In the video, she is whisking powdered green tea to make matcha.


What is Wagashi?

Wagashi is Japanese sweets. Wagashi is traditionally eaten with Sado which means the Japanese Tea ceremony. When visitors come, Japanese people serve green tea and wagashi.

Wagashi is very sweet but wagashi doesn't use oil or fats like butter. And, wagashi is a kind of art that expresses the beauty of the seasons. For example, summer's wagashi uses a lot of jelly-type sweets to make you feel cool.  

Wagashi is becoming popular all over the world.  In New York and Paris, Matsue Wagashi craftsmen introduced wagashi and Japanese tea to the people there.

Jun 22, 2010

Wagashi #4 Asa-Shio 朝汐

Asa-shio
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This Wagashi is called Asashio which means "Morning Tide" in English.  It is a type of Japanese sweet that are called Manjuu.  They are steamed sweet cakes that usually have an outer bun with sweet bean paste inside.
 
History and Culture
Manjuu** are originally a sweet from China that came to Japan (How long ago?).
In Japan, are is used in various cultural events, such as weddings and funerals, and are sold at the supermarket.  They are eater year-round and do not try to represent a seasonal theme, like other types of Wagashi.  
 
There are congratulatory "Kouhaku-Asashio" which are colored red and white. They are usually given as congratulatory presents.  Kouhaku is a lucky color because red symbolizes 'birth' and white symbolizes 'death or parting'.  So kouhaku means 'The Life  of Human'.  There are also manjuu for funereals called, "Aoshiro-Asashio"  which are colored blue and white.

Teijo Nakamura who is haiku poet that lived between 1900 and 1988 wrote that Asashio was one of his favorite sweets.
Roots of the name “Asa-shio-朝汐” 
 There is a story about how this wagashi got its name.
One day a person saw a view of a big wave of the Sea of Japan beaten on the face of some rocks by the northwest wind. The wave became white froth and was scattered on the beach. The person made a sweet from this scene and named this sweet; "Asa-shio".
Appearance
The appearance is white like a cloud and image is based on sea foam.
The inside color is gray. This color is from some bean paste.

Sound (name)
Asa –Shio means “Morning Tide”.

Taste
It is not as sweet as wagashi which is made for matcha, such as “Yamakawa”.
The white yam used in this wagashi wrapper dose not smell very good.
The inside is strained bean paste with a few whole beans.
The inside bean paste is smooth.
The outside is cakey and fragile. The outside wrapper is only about 3 mm thick. 

#Manjuu's Recipe
①Peel the skin of a Yamato yam and rub it.
②You get " Joushinko flour" into the bowl and put the yam rubbed on its flour.
③Knead the yam pushing out on "Joushinko flour" for ten or fifteen minutes.
④Wrap it up with the dough of ③.
⑤Steam ④ in the basket steamer for about ten or fifteen minutes.






**Manjuu
 Manjuu is a sweet wrapped a bean paste with a dough made from flour and steamed. And it is a kind of wagashi that a Mantou in China changed. Manjuu is distributed in a felicity or funeral.
 Manjuu was hand down by a priest in China in the Kamakura or Muromachi period. Then, it was not put in nothing, by the way, it was got into a sweet paste.
 After Manjuu took root in Japan, people made many  idea or the recipe of a bean paste and a dough. For example, " Sai Manjuu" was pout in the boiled vegetables , it was made in the Muromachi period. In the Edo period, there was  " Sato Manjuu" and it was used the sugar. Sato Manjuu was distinguished the normal one. The common people liked it in those days. Recently, there are a few interesting Manjuu; " Hiyoko(chick) Manjuu", " Momiji(maple) Manjuu" and " Banana Manjuu" etc.



Jun 8, 2010

Wagashi #3 Natane no Sato 菜種の里 The Rapeseed Flower Village

 Natane No Sato



History of Natane no Sato  
The "Rapeseed Flower Village" wagashi was made first by a member of the Matsue clan between 1804 and 1818. His name was Doujun and he learned how to make the "Yamakawa" wagashi which is similar to the "Rapeseed Flower Village" wagashi. After he returned home from a trip, he saw the view of butterflies filtting around the rapeseed flower field on the way to the Kandenan teahouse with Fumai. He based the "Rapeseed Flower Village" wagashi on this scene. Its recipe was lost during the Meiji Restoration, but Eizaburo Oka of the Saneido wagashi shop recreated the "Rapeseed Flower Village" wagashi again in 1929.



“Natane no sato” Culture 
“Natane no sato” was revived in 1929. It was loved by Matsudaira Fumai. “Natane no sato” resembles flying butterflies in a rape feed field. It’s a traditional tea cake. It’s one of the three best wagashi in Matsue.



Roots of the name “Natanenosato-菜種の里”  
Natanenosato is the famous of wagashi in Matsue, gets its name from Matsudaira Fumai’s waka. This is Fumai’s waka translated by us into English. Suzuna is blowing. Morning wind is blowing in a field. A lot of butterflies are fliting. Sleeves gradually are increasing. This poem’s meaning in spring, Suzuna which is a kind of turnip is blooming in the morning wind in a field.The field is blowing wind. A lot of butterflies are flitting in the wind.  It seems as if the author thought of many girls wearing Kimonos with fluttering sleeves. 



Recipe of Natane no Sato
 Ingredients Sugar Glutinous rice (mochi) that has been steamed dried and then finely milled to make rice powder Puffed rice Red food coloring Yellow food coloring Yellow food coloring was traditionally made with the fruit from cape jasmines – a type of gardinia


①Combine sugar, glutinous rice, food colorings and unpolished rice in a bowl.
②Spray water on them with a spray bottle.
③Whisk them to combine evenly.  If you don’t knead well, separate.
    The Wagashi craftsman said, "I always knead for more than 20 minutes.”
④Alternate between step 2 and 3 until it become hard.
⑤Place the mixture the square block mold and gently press it into a block shape.
⑥Remoove from the mold and it is ready to cut and serve. 


Taste
It is sweet and it goes well with powered green tea.  


Texture
It is almost the same as Yamakawa (Wagashi #2 blog). -fluffy -moist -melts in your mouth  


Visual
It makes you think of a flower garden full of rapeseed blossoms. And you can see some puffed rice in it and it makes you think of butterflies.


May 25, 2010

Wagashi #2 Yamakawa 山川 Mountain River



History of Yamakawa
  "Yamakawa" is one of the famous sweets of all Japan. One part is pink and the other is white. "Pink" represents the mountain of colored red leaves and "White" represents the river. In 1806, Lord Humai, the ruler in the Izumo region made "Yamakawa" a sweet shop in Edo. The first "Yamakawa" was three pieces, a pink piece, a white piece and another pink one on top. But, "Yamakawa" ceased to be made from 1867. In 1887,Naito Takejiro revived "Yamakawa" to help his recover. "Yamakawa" is famous as a fall sweet.


Culture of Yamakawa
Yamakawa is a standard and traditional sweet used for Buddhist rituals and as a present for guests at happy events.
It was prized as a sweet for guests in the Izumo Clan until the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
This is the traditional way to eat this wagashi; you split it into two by breaking it over your finger.
Yamakawa, was a sweet that was first made in the Edo period. Its recipe was lost in the revolution from the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate to the Meiji era. The people who wanted to recreate “Yamakawa” read the few remaining books about Yamakawa and visited the elders and people who liked the tea ceremony to learn more. At last, they could recreate Yamakawa about 100 years after the recipe was lost.
Yamakawa could be recreated because the people who live in Matsue often have the tea ceremony and love wagashi.




Roots of the name "Yamakawa- 山川"
 『散るは浮き ちらぬは沈む 紅葉ばの 影は高尾の 山川の水』 In the place of the autumn leaves, The autumn leaves floated on the water when they have fallen. And if they do not fall they sink into the water. The shade is the water of a high mountain river The name of  山川 is from this Waka or Japanese poem. 山 means mountain, 川 means river.  This Waka expresses a Japanese autumn scene.


Taste
 Yamakawa's appearance is a rectangle and a little hard.
But the texture is grainy, fluffy and melts in your mouth.
When you break it, the broken part looks like a mountain.
The color is light pink and white. It has a simple and pleasing appearance.