17 April 2005

Mame Daifuku


Mame Daifuku
Originally uploaded by framboise.

Oh, it's been a food-rich week! Inbetween extremely boring packing/clearing out sessions, I've been reading far too many food blogs. Before the drool has time to hit the keyboard, I'm off my seat and in the kitchen. Today was no exception. I came across a recipe for mame daifuku, a Japanese sweet, on a blog I've mentioned before (To short term memories). So, today, as a late afternoon snack, I made some.

Mame daifuku is a Japanese sweet comprising a soft, chewy dough surrounding a small sphere of sweet red bean paste. I don't have any red bean paste in the flat, so I made some:

  1. Boil a cup of chinese red beans (hong-do/ang-dao or adzuki beans) for ~1 hour in ~5 cups of water.
  2. About 30-45 min into the cooking time, scoop out a quarter cup of beans and set them aside for the daifuku.
  3. When the remaining beans are cooked and soft, drain the cooking liquid off, and purée the beans with half a cup of sugar.
  4. Heat 1-2 tbsp of corn oil (or sunflower) in a non-stick wok and fry the paste for ~5 min. Set aside.

I followed the excellent instructions for the as much as possible, having to substitute the peas with the red beans I'd set aside, and using regular chinese glutinous rice flour instead of shiratamako. The inclusion of the whole red beans turned the daifuku into so much more than mochi... And it went extremely well with genmaicha (Japanese green tea with roasted brown rice). An excellent bridging snack!

Anatomy of a daifuku
Anatomy of a daifuku
Originally uploaded by framboise.

Technorati tags: , , .

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmm... wapanese? white people can never and will never be asian.

Emil Andersson said...

You seem to be forgetting the Fact that you do not have to be Asian to show interest or cook japanese food.
Quite sure he didn't say he was Asian either.
Anyways-
I have a huge interest in japanese cuisine and this dish seems pretty cool. I will probably check it out sometime =D

Anonymous said...

Thank you! This is the stuff that drives the character Suzu crazy in the manga/anime "Nagasarete Airantou" (it appears to use whole red beans, like you did) and I was looking for an English recipe.

Wapanese? Oh please...

akatsukira said...

Anonymous 2:
You are welcome. Check out the original recipe on the wibblybunny blog; it is awesome.

N.B. Funny thing abt Annonymouse 1's comment: I am Asian. ;)

akatsukira said...

Emil: True true...

Do try mame daifuku. It's so different from the usual smooth daifuku. The dense lumps of peas/beans are a pleasant surprise.