Time for MITRASHI DANGO - MATCHA with Ground Flaxseed Mill

 The ingredients and recipes are no different than all other previous posting of MITARASHI DANGO. 

Did you notice in most of the ingredients in pre-packaged Japanese food contain Corn Syrups, Heavy Sugar Syrups, syrups, syrups... OMG.  I wish someone would tell them to stop it.

Anyways, until that is changed, I have to make my own.

Instead of eating an empty carb, I thought why not mix some ground flaxseed mill and matcha.  So, I did.   The result is Delicious!

To the basics MITARASH DANGO recipes, I added 1 TBsp of Organic MATCHA and 2 TBsp of Ground Flaxseed Mill.  Add enough water and  Knead the dough till earlobe smooth.

Basic ingredients:  https://rockdavinci.blogspot.com/search?q=MITARASHI+DANGO

Use a 1 inch cookie dough scooper to make even numbers of balls, then, roll them into ball between palms of your hand.

Bring a pot of water to a full rolling boil.   Drop rolled DANGO without letting them touch each other. Quickly stir them off the bottom to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Stir and loosen from the bottom of the pot.

Wait for the water to return to full boil.

Boil 2 minutes to come to rolling boil.   DANGO should float to surface as they are cooked.

Boil 3 to 4 minutes longer depending on the original size of your rolled DANGO.  Take one out and cut, if you are not sure.  If the entire DANGO is translucent, it is ready.  If you see any milky center, the rolled dough is still raw.  Cook longer.   The DANGO should / maybe double in size by now.

Transfer to a strainer.  Separate them and do not let them stick to each other.

Moisten your hand and skewer them onto Japanese Teppo Gushi - bamboo skewers.  It can be found at  Amazon or DAISO.  https://www.amazon.com/JapanBargain-1598x8-J-1598x8-Bamboo-Style-7/dp/B00OJVM54U    Normally three DANGO to a stick.

If you are going to make YAKI MITARE DANGO, be sure to place bamboo skewers in water for 30 minutes before placing skewered DANGO over the grill.  The other way is just place DANGO in a skillet with ceramic surface, for example, and bake one side brown is an idea. 

Roll the skewered DANGO with MITARE (syrup).  Enjoy!

Ready to make the MITARE SYRUP.  At the last minutes, I found out that I ran out of the KATAKURIKO - Potato starch.  So I used corn starch, knowing that the result would be different.  As you can tell from the photo, whether I cook it for 10 minutes or 20 minutes, the corn start MITARE will look muddy, not translucent.

 

MITARE (sweet syrup for the DANGO)   Double the batch if more Dango is made.
Sugar 100 g
Soy sauce 50 ml
MIRIN   30 ml   (Japanese cooking wine)
Water 180 ml   - separate 150 ml   and 30 ml to mix with potato starch
Potato starch  - KATAKURIKO 20 g  to 25 g   (*or more - test it - DO NOT use CORN starch; arrow root starch is okay.)

The syrup should become shiny and translucent, but with corn starch, it is as good as it can get in this case, but the syrup should be thick enough to cover the air dried boiled DANGO.

 

 

Using KATAKURIKO - Potato Starch

The one in the back is Corn Starch MITARE and the ones in the front is KATAKURIKO MITARE

It tasted so good that I ate 10 Dango out of 25!!!

 

Birthday MITARASHI DANGO Making

 It's fun to make something different for birthday.  I decided to make MITARASHI DANGO for birthday.

 

As before in previous posts for MITARASHI DANGO, I decided to test cooking the MITARE  a bit different.  I heated sugar and soy sauce together.  As the sugar started to melt, I added only 150 ml of water and cook to reduce.  About 8 to 10 minutes into cooking, I mixed the 20 g of potato starch with 30 ml water.   Stir.  The mixture thickens.  This methods seem to have jelled up much faster than the previous few tries. 

Prepare the MITARE syrup.

 MITARE (sweet sauce for the DANGO)
Sugar 100 g
Soy sauce 50 ml
MIRIN   30 ml   (Japanese cooking wine)
Water 180 ml   - separate 150 ml   and 30 ml to mix with potato starch
Potato starch  - KATAKURIKO 20 g    (*or more - test it - DO NOT use CORN starch; arrow root starch is okay.)

 

The syrup should be thick enough to coat the Mochi Dango completely and not slipping off.

The DANGO Ingredients:

250 g DANGO flour/SHIRATAMAKO
250 g GLUTINOUS RICE FLOUR (green bag)
Add 180 ml of warm water, and have another 180 ml of warm water ready.  (You might not need all of second cup of 180 ml warm water.)

Combine with warm water; mix.  Add other 180 ml of warm water 1 Tablespoon at a time.  Mix in until you have a soft supple dough - as soft as earlobe soft but not wet.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.   Put enough water for the dough ball to float during cooking,
Roll into a ball. Divide into quarters.
Roll one into a rope.
Cut into 14 g pieces - weighed on scale or just equally using cookie dough scoop.

 

Get a pot of water boiling to cook DANGO.

 

Hold the dough ball between the palms of your hands.  Press down to squash the dough between the palms at the same time you start rolling the dough in a circular motion until you feel the dough has coagulated smoothly into a ball. 

Place balls into the boiling water.    Cover the rest to keep from drying up.

Notice the water calm down as the water temperature changes after adding DANGO.  Stir once to keep DANGO from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Get a bowl of cold water ready.    As the water come to boil, notice each DANGO begins to float.  Keep an eye to make sure the water do not boil over.  Cook the floating DANGO for 2 minutes.  Take one tester and cut it open.  Make sure it is translucent - no white dough.  When the steam clears, taste it. 

 

Transfer the cooked DANGO into cold water to cool.

At this time, if the DANGO is a large size one, you could fill it in to make other type of DANGO.

Skewer to strand 3 DANGO to a serving bamboo stick.

Coat with MITARE syrup.  Serve.

 

 

 

MITARASHI DANGO #4

This MITARASHI DANGO #4 testing is made from a combination of two different glutinous rice flour.  The DANGO turned out perfectly soft chewy, yummy snack without all that xanthan gum, starch, etc.  The combination of glutinous rice powders are DANGO flour and glutinous rice flour from Thailand.

Some of you have seen this glutinous rice flour from my postings on Chinese New Year Cake.  Why combine?  because this DANGO Flour is no longer being sold at DAISO for $1 or $1.50 and is quite pricey at  MITSUWA or at DAIWA.  And I need to make a lot to share with everyone.
Ingredients are the same as other postings on the DANGO.
For this combination, it is:
250 g DANGO flour
250 g GLUTINOUS RICE FLOUR (green bag)
Add 180 ml of warm water, and have another 180 ml of warm water ready.  (You might not need all of second cup of 180 ml warm water.)
Combine with warm water; mix.  Add other 180 ml of warm water 1 Tablespoon at a time.  Mix in until you have a soft supple dough -as soft as earlobe soft but not wet.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.   Put enough water for the dough ball to float during cooking,
Roll into a ball. Divide into quarters.
Roll one into a rope.
Cut into 14 g pieces - weighed on scale.
Cover the rest in a bowl to keep from drying up.
Roll a piece between your palm into a ball.
If it feels like it is about to crumble - don't worry - without opening your palm - press down to the dough and rub the dough in a circular motion to form it back into a round ball.
place on plate.

Cook at high heat.  Place the dough balls into the boiling water while stirring the water to keep the dough from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Wait for the water to come to Boil again.
TIP:  Have a cup of cold water on the side.  If the water in the pot boil over, you can add a bit of cold water to calm it down or adjust the heat control.
But the DANGO must be cooked over high heat for 2 additional minutes after they float to the top.




Have a bowl of cold water ready.

Scoop the cooked DANGO into cold water.

Prepare the MITARE syrup.  Double the following recipe.
MITARE (sweet sauce for the DANGO)
Sugar 100 g
Soy sauce 50 ml
MIRIN   30 ml   (Japanese cooking wine)
Water 180 ml
Potato starch  - KATAKURIKO 20 g    (*or more - test it - DO NOT use CORN starch; arrow root starch is okay.)

New technique:  Mix in a pot:  sugar and soy sauce and MIRIN, and 50 ml of water first to dissolve sugar.  
Bring the liquid to low boil.  
Mix the rest of water and Potato starch (KATAKURIKO)  together.
Get READY MIX Vigorously - Add the starch slur to the hot liquid in the pot.
Turn the heat to medium.
Stir and cook until it becomes translucent.
Continue cook over medium heat - stir, stir, stir...  until water evaporates and syrup becomes absolutely "thick" and sticky.  Control heat temperature as needed. 
Keep scraping the bottom of the pot and sides to keep from burning the syrup.
Becareful not to burn yourself.   It will become lava like.

It is done when it sticks to your spatula without drooling down so quickly.  The thicker the better.  (*A bit more starch at the beginning would have helped, I bet.)   Cooking period:  20 - 30 min.  << This is too long.  *shows that more starch would have helped.
NEW technique:  Set it aside to cool for 5 - 8 min. 

Strain the DANGO.  
In a large ceramic skillet.  Rub some cooking oil.  Place all the DANGO in it to brown one spot of the dango.

 *Try not to let the DANGO touch each other while browning.

 Normally, you skewer three to a stick because "4" is not a lucky sound in Japanese.  I was just trying to save the stick's real estate.

Skewer to a stick.
Dip in MITARE syrup.  Actually, it is more like scoop the syrup with a spoon and 'wrap' the syrup around the DANGO.

Serve.
This recipe kept the DANGO soft for many hours.  I wish I can say for two days or even after refrigeration, but they are always eaten up, so can't tell.   Let me know how long yours lasted and stayed gummy yummy.

The following combination of this flour and Thai Glutinous rice flour turned out not so desirable.  
This DANGO flour is specific for the type of pastry as pictured and perfect for that. It is a combination of 50% Glutinous MOCHI flour and 50% URUCHIMI - rice flour.   But if you want the chewy DANGO on the stick that we want to make stick to the recipe I gave above.  This combination here produced DANGO  that are firmer and just don't give that satisfying mouthfeel.   I thought I might have not put enough water or boiled long enough in the past test, but I think it's just is the characteristic of this flour.

It's almost plasticky.  But looks good.
As you can see from the pictures, the MITARE syrup really really need to be thick and sticky.  And browning process on the skillet help dry up the surface to help syrup to adhere to the DANGO.  And definitely maybe a bit more KATAKURIKO would help the process.  Because stirring for 30 minutes to wait for water to evaporate to thicken the syrup tells you that additional KATAKURIKO would helped.    I will try that next time.