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Post by solveig on Jun 10, 2007 19:28:48 GMT -5
Noble Cousin!
Greetings from Solveig! Since you expressed an interest in chigomochi, I will write a bit about it here.
Step 1. Make balls of white mochi. Step 2. Stick THREE balls (never ever four) on a stick. (use wooden sticks about the diameter of tootsie pop sticks) Setp 3. Slather on miso. Step 4. Grill until done. (The text calls for dengakuyaki.)
Now, the one big trick is to come up with mochi that is soft enough to pull this off. Mochi sold in stores is usually hard as bricks. Shizuo Tsuji in "Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art" says that you can soften mochi by soaking it overnight in cold water. If this does not work, I suggest grinding dry mochi up, adding a bit of warm/cool water, then expelling the water by pounding with a wooden mallet against a wooden bowl or board to make something the consistency of play dough. I urge you to experiment with your mochi until you find a good way to produce bite size balls about the consistency of play dough. Basically, just soft enough that you can smoosh them into balls.
If the idea of candy shishkabob slathered in miso is a bit daunting. There are other candy on a stick variants where the miso is left off and the mochi is coloured different colours.
I suspect that the term dengaku yaki derives from field cookery while transplanting rice. Transplanting rice was a big-time communal activity with a bit of a festive air. Typically, the women transplanted the rice while the men played music and danced. At least that is what is shown in period iconographic evidence I have at hand. As I recall, you can see a bit of this sort of thing on film in Seven Samurai.
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Saionji Shonagon
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jun 10, 2007 19:44:46 GMT -5
I suspect that the term dengaku yaki derives from field cookery while transplanting rice. Transplanting rice was a big-time communal activity with a bit of a festive air. Typically, the women transplanted the rice while the men played music and danced. At least that is what is shown in period iconographic evidence I have at hand. As I recall, you can see a bit of this sort of thing on film in Seven Samurai. A detail from Genre Scenes of the Twelve Months, a screen in the Tokyo National Museum. www.tnm.go.jp/gallery/search/images/max/C0022470.jpgHomemade mochi is probably easier than trying to reconstitute stale storebought mochi. All it is is sweet rice flour, water and sugar. www.kuidaosumi.com/recipes/mochi.html (Ignore the blueberry mochi recipe at the bottom.) Nagamochi-dono, if you cannot get mochiko in the wilds of Tomah, ping me offline and I'll send you some.
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Post by solveig on Jun 10, 2007 19:57:32 GMT -5
Noble Cousin! Greetings from Solveig! That was exactly the image I was thinking of. Thank you for posting it. If you look off in the upper right hand corner you will see men dancing and playing musical instruments. Homemade mochi is probably easier than trying to reconstitute stale storebought mochi. All it is is sweet rice flour, water and sugar. www.kuidaosumi.com/recipes/mochi.html (Ignore the blueberry mochi recipe at the bottom.) Thank you for the reference for making omochi from scratch. I wasn't sure whether he wanted to get that involved with it. Making omochi from scratch is all by itself a rather spectacular festival activity. The recipe does call for white omochi, so I hope that our friend and colleague is not sidetracked by such things as blueberry omochi. Incidentally, there are other much more period things to flavour or colour omochi with. One more thing. As I recall, the omochi recipes that I have do not call for adding sugar to the rice flour.
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Saionji Shonagon
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jun 10, 2007 20:01:57 GMT -5
Solveig-hime, Might you elaborate more on what some of the sakana are? I've been toying with the idea of hosting a sake tasting at an upcoming SCA event. Context: autumn, evening, out of doors, intimate and unofficial. It's mainly to introduce my Western friends to some nice sipping sakes and snacks above and beyond the ubiquitous yet addictive wasabi peas.
Many thanks, Saionji
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Saionji Shonagon
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jun 10, 2007 20:11:06 GMT -5
Thank you for the reference for making omochi from scratch. I wasn't sure whether he wanted to get that involved with it. From offline conversations I've had with him, I know for a fact that he's a foodie. There's a mochi recipe on the box of Mochiko I just grabbed from the kitchen, but I figure the cocoa powder is Right Out.* A 1 lb box of mochiko to 3 cups of water, basically. Mix it, microwave for 5 minutes, mix again, microwave for another 5. Pour into a greased baking pan, cool until firm, dust with rice flour, turn it out onto a cutting board and cut into squares. (For those that want the cocoa variant *6 teaspoons cocoa powder, 2 cups sugar, 1 cup water get mixed in a sausepan with heat. This syrup gets mixed into the mochi after the second stint in the microwave just before the mochi goes into the baking pan. Instead of dusting with flour as above, use a bit of cocoa powder instead.) EDIT: Koda Farms has a website. Unfortunately, both mochi recipes are non-traditional flavors, the cocoa one and one with coconut. www.kodafarms.com/recipes_mochi.htmlwww.kodafarms.com/recipes_mochiko.html
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Post by solveig on Jun 10, 2007 20:32:15 GMT -5
Noble Cousin! Greetings from Solveig! Might you elaborate more on what some of the sakana are? I've been toying with the idea of hosting a sake tasting at an upcoming SCA event. Context: autumn, evening, out of doors, intimate and unofficial. It's mainly to introduce my Western friends to some nice sipping sakes and snacks above and beyond the ubiquitous yet addictive wasabi peas. Great idea. I should mention that as far as the Japanese are concerned, Autumn starts in August or thereablouts. Unfortunately, Chado Saijiki doesn't go into specifying sakana for drinking parties. However, it may be possible to extract something from a Haiku saijiki. No luck there either. I happen to have several books on sake culture checked out on ILL at the moment, so I will try to spend some time with them sometime during the next week. There is a whole section on sakana in Ryorimonogatari. So, if you feel up to tackling the Japanese you can of course look up a copy of it. It is available in three different editions: repropduction of the original woodblock version, a direct transcription in ZGR 19.3, and at least a partial translation into modern Japanese in a third volume. While looking for the correct section, I ran into several omochi based items in the section on okashi. They appear to take sweet rice flour, run it through a seive, steam cook it. Then they the newly made omochi as a raw ingredient. Sakana recipes appearing in section 16 of Ryorimonogatari include: Tamago Fuwafuwa Moshisoronari Namahi Shake no Namabi Taka no hane Awabi no Namaboshi Since sakana and sakana are homonyms, I would suggest having some sort of dried fish or possibly a seasonal fish if it is small enough. I believe that one of the food dictionaries I have has a seasonal chart associated with its entries. If they are in season, kushiyaki of gin'nan (ginko seeds) is yummy. You can actually put them on long pine needles. Fresh tofu is characteristic of autumn, so you might try making sukugarasu which is made by putting a single salt-pickled rabbitfish on a cube of fresh tofu. A common bar food in Japan is the lees left over from making tofu. This would be particularly appropriate for Autumn as well. Deep fried sardine fry (small fish not fired fish) would also evoke Autumn. Simmered bull-head fry. IF YOU ARE FEELING RICH - Katsuo sashimi YUMM! (This one while yummy is a bit problematic as Katsuo is a deep sea fish.) Possibly salmon or trout roe. Another common bar food. Mezashi shishamo (small smelt) Oh well, I will get back to this when I am better able to help out. I have an interview coming up this week, and I should at least pretend to prepare for it.
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Saionji Shonagon
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jun 10, 2007 22:20:20 GMT -5
Oh well, I will get back to this when I am better able to help out. I have an interview coming up this week, and I should at least pretend to prepare for it. Do not let me keep you - real life comes first. Good luck. There's plenty of time and we can always chat at Pennsic.
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Post by solveig on Jun 10, 2007 22:44:57 GMT -5
Noble Cousin! Greetings from Solveig! There's plenty of time and we can always chat at Pennsic. I live in the encampment [E03] behind Dave Cooper's house. If you arrive during daylight, you can spot the banners when you come in. It's a very short walk from there. I'm back at my apartment now and am considering the virtues of sleep.
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Post by Nagamochi on Jun 11, 2007 23:41:56 GMT -5
Thank you Solveig for all your wonderful help and insight.
Although, just out of my own curiousity, are there any other sauces or pastes traditionally used to coat the chigomochi? I'm quite certain I can miso in the hinterlands of my new home, but in the odd off chance that the gods decide to make use of their humor with me, I figured it best to know.
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Post by solveig on Jun 12, 2007 0:18:33 GMT -5
Noble Cousin! Greetings from Solveig! Thank you Solveig for all your wonderful help and insight. Although, just out of my own curiousity, are there any other sauces or pastes traditionally used to coat the chigomochi? I'm quite certain I can miso in the hinterlands of my new home, but in the odd off chance that the gods decide to make use of their humor with me, I figured it best to know. Well, I was going to go back and change the white miso to red miso. So please consider using red miso instead of white. If you want to provide an alternative to the faint of heart, you might think of grilling some of them first and then smearing them with azuki bean paste. However, the recipe really is for smearing them with miso and grilling them. Another possiblity is a kind of thin brown syrup, but I have to look that one up after I get back from Pittsburgh.
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Post by Tatsuya on Jun 12, 2007 0:19:16 GMT -5
I believe sweetened shoyu (soy sauce + sugar) is also used as a variation.
I think azuki paste would taste awesome! Like a fire roasted dango. Mmmmm.... Probably more in line with being a "sweet" snack than the miso sauce (unless you add sugar to the miso too).
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Post by elpresto on Jun 12, 2007 20:49:07 GMT -5
The black sesame paste ones are good too. A nice nutty-sweet flavor...just don't smile at anyone after having a bite!
Of course, why stop at dango? Meat on a stick is one of the oldest cooking methods out there. It might not have been terribly frou-frou back in the heian, but why not a few yakitori-type things?
Yes, yes there is the whole "washoku doesn't have meat other than fish" argument, but we've all seen enough hunting scenes on prints to know that plenty of things with faces were being eaten before the Meiji Restoration.
As for meat on a stick, chicken meat balls and plain yakitori are good. Just stay away from the chicken skin or the cartilage ones.
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Post by Henmei on Jun 12, 2007 23:45:20 GMT -5
The black sesame paste ones are good too. A nice nutty-sweet flavor...just don't smile at anyone after having a bite! You seem to presume that the black bits will contrast with one's teeth. 'Tain't necessarily so.
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Saionji Shonagon
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jun 13, 2007 0:25:13 GMT -5
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Post by Nagamochi on Jun 13, 2007 1:22:03 GMT -5
Ok, so much to my delight, my trip to the nearest Asian grocer, nearly 50 miles away, not only had rice flour, but 15 DIFFERENT VARIETIES! After narrowing it down to a possibility of 3, I then had the kind help of the Thai lady who ran the place, who spoke perfect Thai and reasonable English. Her language abilities made it difficult to break the concept of dango down to: make dough, put on stick, and grill. She kept thinking I wanted to stuff the puppies and either deepfry or steam them. With that said, I'm now in possesion of a glutinous rice flour, and one that the lady insisted I needed for the project which is mainly intended for Chinese-style filled steam buns containing wheat flour and a couple of other binders. I plan on trying both, because Kannon preserve me, I have to sample the goods. Though I must ask, which one sounds closest to mochiko?
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