Hana yori dango, loves eating more than flowers
Japanese people love hanami, which literally means”flower viewing”. The flower is, particularly for cherry blossoms. In addition, people spend time together under the cherry trees, picnicking and drinking together while enjoying beautiful cherry blossoms. This event has been historically described in the old Japanese poetries and artworks. For instance, there is also have a unique idiom “ Hana yori dango” ( 花より団子), meaning “ Dango dumplings rather than flowers”. In other words, the practical nature of the food is preferred over the aesthetic. As you see in the old Japanese idiom, hanami dango is an essential sweet for cherry blossom viewing.
What is dango?
Dango is a traditional Japanese sweet made from two rice flours; uruchi rice flour and glutinous rice flour. Although there is a similarity with mochi, dango is chewier and less sticky. Dango is usually served on a skewer, and most dango are eaten with sauce or sweet bean paste. The most popular variety of dango is called “mitarashi dango“. It’s covered with a sweet-savory sauce made from soy sauce, sugar, and starch. People also like the one with red beans which you can see in many food stores in Japan.
What is Hanami Dango？
Hanami dango comes in three colors and is served without sauce or bean paste on a skewer. Many people enjoy these seasonal sweets as reminders of spring coming. This tricolor ball is very cute to look at and is actually part of the emoji.🍡 There are many dango design products such as stickers or stuffed animals because it’s very kawaii (cute in Japanese). For example, my friend was wearing hanami dango shaped earrings one day, and she looked terrific.
Which sweet rice flour is for dango?
In the wagashi world, there are different types of glutinous rice flour for each confectionary. Wagashi chefs traditionally use two types of rice flour. They use Shiratama-ko, which is a glutinous Japanese short-grain rice. And another one is jyoshin-ko, which is a regular short-grain Japanese rice. These flours create a special chewy and soft texture. You can find them in your local Japanese markets, or order them online. You can also use Erawan brand glutinous rice flour as a substitute. However, please adjust the water amount. You may need a little bit more water than Japanese glutinous rice flour.
Traditional Style
Firstly, we steam the jyoshinko dough instead of boiling it in the water in the traditional recipe. However, this process is very cumbersome. You have to knead the dough, steam, then stamping with a special mochi stamping machine. On the other hand, in this recipe, you will knead the dough and just boil. However, you have to add hot water when you making the jyoshinko dough. If you use cold water, it might not cook well in the center part of the dough. Also, it might get too hard dango after you boil the dough.
Secondly, traditional dango is only made out of jyoshinko. However, many new recipes add sugar and shiratamako. This way the texture will become softer. The sugar provides a soft texture, also makes the dango last longer.
Natural coloring ingredients for hanami dango
The hanami dango’s tricolor traditionally comes from natural ingredients. Purple shiso (herb), or kuchinahi (jasmine) is used for the red color, and yomogi (mugwort) provides for the green color. In addition, Japanese people have been used yomogi in the spring which is the harvest time for its plant. Unfortunately, it is not easy to get those natural dyes in the U.S. Therefore, I use strawberry powder for red, and matcha powder for green. In order to make strawberry powder, I smush the freeze-dried strawberries then strain them. I prefer natural ingredients for coloring food most of my pastries. However, you can use food coloring for your convenience.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (125g) of shiratama ko (glutinous rice flour)
- ⅓ cup (67g) of sugar
- ½ cup (75g) of cold water
- ½ cup (75g) of Jyoshin ko (non-glutinous rice flour)
- ¼ cup (50ml) of hot water
- 1 teaspoon of matcha powder
- 2 teaspoons of strawberry powder
Instructions
- Add shiratama ko and sugar together in a medium-sized bowl. Gradually add water, mixing well until the mixture becomes smooth.
- In another bowl, add jyoshin ko and add hot water, mix them.
- Combined the shiratama dough and jyoshin dough, knead them until the dough becomes consistency of an earlobe.
- Boil a lot of water
- Divide the dough into thirds. Add the strawberry powder to one-third, and the matcha powder to another third. Knead well until the powder is well combined. You have the red, green, and white color of dough.
- Make the dango dough into a 2cm/ 1 inch in diameter size of small balls.
- Add the mochi balls into the boiling water and cook for about 3 -4 minutes.
- When the mochi balls start to float, remove from hot water into a bowl of cold water and cool them down.
- Thread one of each color onto a bamboo skewer.
