Sweets
Aka Mochi
Aka Mochi — reddish sorghum-flour dumplings coated in sweet bean paste
Reddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Origin: Ibaraki Hitachiota
- About 120 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
Flour from red sorghum is kneaded with hot water into dumplings, boiled, and coated in sweet bean paste or roasted soybean flour — a reddish-purple mochi. Made from sorghum, which grows even in flood-prone areas where rice and wheat struggle, it has a plain, filling flavor, and was once eaten as a substitute staple or a snack during farm work in years when rice fell short.
How it's made
Sorghum flour is kneaded well with hot water into dumplings about five centimeters across and a centimeter thick, with a slight dimple pressed into the center, then boiled. Once the reddened dumplings float to the surface, they're lifted out and coated with sweet bean paste or roasted soybean flour while still hot. The mochi hardens as it cools, so it's best eaten warm, or re-boiled to soften if it does.
Why it took this shape
The rivers here flooded regularly with heavy rain, ruining most crops along their banks, but the tall-growing sorghum plant was better able to survive the floods, which is said to be why it took hold as a crop in this flood-prone region. It became a substitute staple in years when rice was scarce, and today, with sorghum flour hard to come by, it's kept alive mainly through school lessons on local food culture.
Before you go
- How to shop in a depachika (department store food hall)A guide to browsing prepared foods and bento, choosing wagashi as a gift with a good shelf life, sampling etiquette, end-of-day discounts, asking for cold packs and wrapping, and finding your way around a depachika floor.
- At kissaten, cafes, and kanmi-dokoroThe difference between jun-kissa and chain cafes, the morning-set custom, and kanmi-dokoro staples like anmitsu and zenzai.
Dishes in the same style
- Abekawa MochiFresh-pounded rice cake is dusted in soybean flour mixed with sugar. Named for the Abe River, it's said to have been famous among Tokaido travelers as a teahouse specialty and to appear in the travel novel Tokaidochu Hizakurige.
- Iga ManjuSweet bean paste is wrapped in rice flour dough, then coated with dyed sticky rice grains. One account ties the name to the grains' resemblance to a chestnut's spiny husk, and in the western Mikawa region it's said to be offered to Hina dolls at the Doll Festival.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Ibaraki
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.
- Hamaguri GohanLarge clams from the Kashima coast are stir-fried with carrot and shiitake, and the rice is cooked in their broth. Because each clam's two shells fit only each other, the dish is served at weddings and other celebrations.