Tsukimi Dango (Moon Viewing Mochi) / 月見団子
lmost 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!
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
If you are using dangoko, remove the joshinko and shiratamako and use just 100 g of dangoko instead.
Recipe by Sylvia Wakana (http://sylviawakana.com)