Sweets
Komugi Manju
Komugi Manju — steamed wheat buns filled with sweet bean paste
Wheat dough leavened with baking soda wraps sweet bean paste and is steamed — a treat tied to the Obon season just after the wheat harvest, once offered to ancestors on the old-calendar day the gates of the underworld were said to open.
- Origin: Tochigi
- About 100 km north of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Wheat flour dough wraps sweet azuki bean paste and is steamed — a plain bun also called "soda manju" for the baking soda mixed into the dough. Fresh-milled wheat flour comes to market just before Obon, when the wheat harvest ends, making this bun essential to Obon observances in every household, its soft dough and gently sweet filling its defining charm.
How it's made
Wheat flour sifted with baking soda is mixed with sugar water until it forms a dough about as soft as an earlobe. Balls of bean paste are wrapped in the dough, sealed side down, and steamed for ten to twelve minutes. Some cooks work pumpkin, spinach, or chrysanthemum greens into a paste and knead it into the dough for color and fragrance, or use brown sugar for a darker "tea manju," and even swap in miso or sweet potato for the filling.
Why it took this shape
Tochigi's double-cropped fields grow a great deal of wheat, and dishes made from it have long been part of everyday cooking here, with fresh flour arriving just before Obon said to be what settled this bun into that season's custom. The tradition of offering "kamabuta manju" on the old-calendar day when hell's lid is said to open, so ancestors won't go hungry on their journey back, is still carried on today.
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.
- Osechi and zoni for the New YearA guide to the meaning behind osechi's tiered boxes, the regional differences in zoni (square vs. round mochi, clear vs. miso broth), and the nanakusa-gayu custom.
- Setsubun: ehomaki and lucky beansA guide to ehomaki, the uncut sushi roll said to be eaten facing a lucky direction on Setsubun, and to mamemaki, the bean-throwing custom with roasted lucky beans.
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 Tochigi
- Agemaki Yuba no NimonoFresh yuba sheets are layered, rolled into a log, sliced into rounds, and deep-fried before a slow simmer in a light broth — a Nikko dish built on the region's rippled yuba-making craft, served at New Year's and celebrations.
- Aiso no KanroniDace that gather to spawn each spring in the Naka and Kinu rivers, known locally as aiso, are slow-simmered in a sweet glaze until soft to the bone — food from a landlocked prefecture where river fish once meant protein.
- Ayu MeshiAlong the Naka River and other ayu-fishing streams, unseasoned grilled ayu is cooked into the rice — made for festivals and farm rest days, with any leftover fish skewered and hung by the hearth to keep.
- Bandai MochiIn the Kuriyama district of Nikko, firm-cooked non-glutinous rice is pounded on a wooden board — hence 'itadai-mochi,' board-mochi — and eaten with miso glaze, sweet bean paste, or a perilla-seed sauce depending on the hamlet.
- Chitake to Nasu no Abura ItameChitake mushrooms, which weep a milky sap when torn, are stir-fried with eggplant — a summer-only find tied to managed satoyama woodland, and also prized as a broth base for udon and soba.