Sweets
Anbo
Anbo — a rice-flour dumpling steamed around sweet or savory fillings
A Chuetsu-region dish of steamed rice-flour dumplings filled with sweet bean paste, pickled greens or eggplant. Similar in spirit to Nagano's oyaki but distinguished by its rice-flour skin, reflecting land suited to rice rather than wheat.
- Origin: Niigata
- About 210 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
A well-kneaded rice-flour dough is wrapped generously around a filling, sweet red bean paste or greens seasoned with miso, and grilled, resembling a stuffed bun. Because rice flour is used instead of wheat flour, it has a thick, chewy texture, and grilling it in hearth ash adds a smoky aroma. Fillings vary widely by region and household, ranging from sweet to savory.
How it's made
Rice flour is kneaded well with water into a soft dough, then wrapped carefully and generously around a filling of choice, sweet red bean paste, vegetables seasoned with miso, or salmon. It was once grilled in hearth ash or over a wire grate, but today it's more commonly cooked in a toaster oven or a pan with a little oil. It also freezes well and can be reheated when it's time to eat.
Why it took this shape
In this rice-rich region, the practice of using familiar rice flour instead of wheat for the dough is said to have taken deep root long ago. It's thought to have also served as a way to put broken rice grains unfit for tax payment to good use without waste, and it has been passed down as a winter preserved food, a daily staple, and a snack that quietly accompanies everyday life regardless of season.
Before You Go
- How to use a convenience storeA quick guide to choosing rice balls and hot snacks, buying coffee, paying by cash, IC card, or tap payment, using the eat-in corner, and sorting your trash — the basics for a first visit.
- 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.
- Takeout and convenience store customsHow to answer "Shall I warm it up?", choosing chopsticks and a paid plastic bag, saying whether you'll eat in or take out, handling trash and eating while walking, and the different tax rate for takeout versus eating in.
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
Contrast
- Sasa DangoA Niigata sweet of rice-and-mugwort dough wrapped around sweet bean paste, folded into a bale shape with bamboo grass leaves and steamed. Its origin is traced to a portable ration that used the leaves' antiseptic power, and it is said to be essential at harvest festivals and the Boys' Festival.
- Kanko YakiA dish from the Tsukui area of Sagamihara City, wheat dough wrapped around seasonal fillings such as mountain vegetables, sweet bean paste or pumpkin, then pan-baked and steamed. Born of a wheat-based diet in mountains ill-suited to rice, its name is said to come from its resemblance to a drum used in court music.
Also from Niigata
- Echigo misoA red, savory miso from Niigata, also called 'ukikoji miso' (floating-koji miso) because its polished whole-grain rice koji appears to float within the paste. Its style is said to vary across Niigata's Joetsu, Chuetsu, Kaetsu, and Sado districts, each shaped by local climate.
- Fugu no Ko no KasuzukeA rare Sado delicacy in which puffer fish ovaries are salt-cured for two years or more, then aged for a long stretch in Sado's sake lees. Only ovaries processed by licensed fugu chefs are sold, and the practice is said to date back to the Edo period.
- Fukashi NasuA Niigata dish of kinchaku eggplant halved, steamed, chilled and eaten with mustard or ginger soy sauce. In a prefecture among Japan's top eggplant producers, it is said to have been valued as a cooling dish through the summer.
- Hegi SobaA soba from Ojiya, Niigata, that uses funori seaweed, the same binder once used to size thread for the region's textiles, as a noodle binder. It is arranged in small bite-sized portions on a wooden box called a hegi.
- Hiyashijiru Miso JitateA chilled soup from the Chuetsu region, dashi thinned with miso and studded with chopped cucumber and shiso. Devised to stay appetizing through the summer heat, it is said to be eaten on its own or poured over rice or noodles.
- IgoneriA Sado specialty made by simmering and kneading igo seaweed until it sets into a firm sheet, then slicing it thin to eat with ginger soy sauce or vinegar miso. Chewy with a faint sea-breeze aroma, it is said to trace back to Kyushu cuisine carried north by kitamae-bune ships.