tofu dango

well i havent used this blog in forever.. i dont have time to be trying to study japanese all the time anymore since i have other classes to think of.. ive mostly given up and surrendered to the people who say its too hard to learn.. i was ok until i realized that kanji was easy and the morphology was difficult.. so from now on it is unlikely that you will be hearing about me trying to tackle the japanese language.. sorry to dissapoint you

well everyone ive been cooking a lot lately and i recently went to a japanese supermarket called mitsuwa marketplace. so im not so traditional when it comes to cooking japanese food.. i tend to go ahead and Americanize things. tofu dango can be eaten with sweet soy sauce.. but i dont like that.. so im going to see about Americanizing it by using different sauces.

lets start with the basic recipe

• 1 package silken tofu (i used the shelf stable variety)
• 2 cups mochiko
• add a teaspoon at a time of water until it is easy to kneed and shape

now that's simple yeah? so you mix them together with your hands (dont even bother trying a spoon or whisk) then roll the dough into little balls.. then you toss the balls (gently) into lots of boiling water and cook them until they float on the surface, then continue cooking for 2 more minutes while you prepare ice water.. then take them out with a spider (its a device that looks like a mesh strainer and a ladle had a baby) and shock them by putting them in the ice water.. this stops the cooking and improves the texture..

so then i drained the balls well and put them in a ziplock bag and parked them in the fridge

what to do with them? well you could

1. float them in soup as dumplings
2. melt your favorite jam and cover them after skewering them
3. melt peanutbutter and brown sugar syrup together
4. maple syrup

you could also add things like food coloring to the original recipe.. or herbs if you plan on using them in soup or stew. make multycolored skewers of tofu dango by immersing the balls in different cups of food colored water and then skewering them.. i think that idea would work well for a kids bento.. you can add soup mix to the mochiko before mixing in the tofu for savory dango. the possibilities are endless

here are some christmas themed tofu dango:

and here is some delicious tofu dango with peanut-brown sugar sauce