It’s almost Tsukimi, or the Japanese Moon Viewing Festival. This beautiful display of Tsukimi Dango, or Moon Viewing Mochi, is easy to make and best of all – it’s edible!
Many people are familiar with the Chinese Mid Autumn Festival, but did you know Japan celebrates this change of seasons as well? It is called Tsukimi (月見), the Moon Viewing Festival.
What is Tsukimi?
Tsukimi is the Moon Viewing Festival and takes place mid-autumn, usually falling between mid-September to early October. It is to celebrate a good harvest as well as good health. Displays of Susuki (pampas grass), Tsukimi Dango (Moon Viewing Mochi), and other seasonal foods such as chestnuts or persimmons are put out in homes as offerings to the lunar gods.
What is Dango?
Dango are Japanese rice dumpings. These traditional Japanese sweets are chewy and simple yet delicious. While they sometimes come in different flavors or glazes, Tsukimi Dango uses it in the simplest form so they’re very easy to make!
Because these are plain dango, they only have a natural sweetness from the rice but you can always add some sugar if you prefer them a little sweeter.
Some recipe notes
In Japanese cuisine, there are different kinds of rice flour that all lend to creating dishes that have different textures. For this type of dango, you want a nice bouncy, soft, moist, and stretchy texture. I use a combination of joshinko and shiratamako to achieve that, but you can also use straight dangoko instead, which is specifically Japanese rice dumpling flour.
The amount of water you put into the mochi dough will vary depending on the humidity of where you live. I live in a sort of dry area, so typically I have to add in a little extra water, or if you live in a very humid area, you can use a little less water. You can always add more water as you’re kneading the mochi in little amounts to achieve the right texture. The flours should come together to be quite smooth and the texture is that of an earlobe.
If you do not want to use food coloring, you can naturally color the mochi using cooked kabocha or turmeric.
Mochi does harden after sitting out for a while, so if you want to enjoy eating them, please do so within a day or so of making them. You can also toast them if they have dried out.
Definitely recommend trying to make a simple dango like this if you want to get into more complex mochi-making.
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Tsukimi Dango (Moon Viewing Mochi) / 月見団子
Ingredients
- 100 g joshinko rice flour
- 100 g shiratamako sweet glutinous rice flour
- 160 ml warm water
Instructions
- In a bowl, put in the joshinko and shiratamako (or just dangoko If you are using that).
- Add the warm water to the flour mixture little by little and stirring in-between. Eventually the flour mixture will form large clumps.
- Knead the mixture with your hands until it is combined well into one large, smooth ball.
- Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. Split each of those pieces into two pieces (so you will have 16 small pieces). Roll each of those small pieces (except for one) into small, round balls.
- For the last one, use yellow food coloring (or natural coloring of your choice) and combine the coloring into to the dough to make one yellow colored ball.
- In a pot, boil water. Drop in the prepared dumplings carefully into the water one by one (I do the yellow one separately in case the color transfers). Periodically stir the balls softly so they do not stick to the bottom.
- Once the balls start to float, cook for another 1-2 minutes and then remove them from the pot.
- Place the balls in a bowl of ice water. Once cooled, transfer them to a wet plate.
- Begin plating them on a plate or tray. Put 9 balls (3 x 3 grid) as the bottom tier, 4 balls (2 x 2 grid) as the second tier, and top off the pyramid with the yellow mochi.
- Put close to a south facing window as an offering to the lunar gods – then enjoy!
Notes
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Food Coloring
Rabbit Matcha Bowl
Rabbit Moon Teacup Set
Rabbit Tray
Kitchen Scale
Joshinko (non-glutinous rice flour) / 上新粉
Shiratamako / 白玉粉
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