"Wagashi" is Japanese traditional sweets made of plant-based ingredients, such as mochi, red bean, flour, kudzu, seasonal fruits...etc. Served at tea ceremony or at the end of a meal with tea.
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| Yokan with simmered sweet chest nut |
"Yokan"(羊羹ようかん) is one of the oldest wagashi made from red bean, sugar and agar.
Technically, there are different names for the different ways of making "yokan".
"Neri Yokan" is solid block, contains more red beans and less water.
"Mizu Yokan" (Japanese "Mizu" means water in English), on the other had, is softer, contains less red beans and more water than "Neri Yokan".
Here I introduce is how to make "Mizu Yokan" (because I personally like it better than "Neri Yokan"!!).
Prepare, red beans, agar ("Kanten"寒天 in Japanese, "Yang Cai" 洋菜 in Chinese -in Taiwan-, "Qiong Zhi" 琼脂 -in Mainland China-), sugar and water.
Red bean paste: 300gm
Water: 500ml
Agar: 9gm
Sugar: depends how sweet the red bean paste is... (need to taste it while cooking. it should be bit sweeter than you feel comfortable. it becomes less sweet after chilled)
Picture on the top left is Japanese "Kanten", on the right is Chinese "Qiong Zhi"
Agar comes in different shapes. Here I use is the threads shaped one.
* If you like to make red bean paste from fresh red beans...
Put red beans in a pot with more than enough water to cover up the red beans and heat it up till it boils. Add water on the pot, 2-3 times while boiling. Keep it for several hours in medium heat.
Make sure all the red beans are completely cooked and soft in the middle, then add sugar.
Put the cooked red bean in a food processor, strain off the skins of red beans and make it into smooth red bean paste.
Put agar in a bowl with cold water and leave it for over night.
Take out the agar from the bowl and dry off the water.
Put it into a pot with majored water.
Heat it up and mix it well while heating.
Make sure all the agar are melt in the water.
Put red bean paste in the pot and mix them well.
Strain it off in a bowl and cool it down in a ice water bath.
Mix well while cooling down the bowl (other wise the red bean paste sunk down in the bottom).
Pour it into "Nagashi kan" a special stainless container (if not, cups, plastic container or anything can be used) as soon as the liquid inside the bowl get thickened (*liquid with agar gets solid in room temperature, not like one with gelatin which needs lower temperature to get solid).
Put it into a fridge till it gets solid.
"Nagashi kan" can be used to make "Yokan" and many other Japanese food
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| Done!! |
Yokan with sweet green tea sauce as an accent
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