Sweets
Mikan Mochi
Mikan Mochi — mandarin oranges steamed onto sticky rice and pounded together
Arida mandarins are steamed atop sticky rice, then peeled and pounded in together into a mochi treat. Said to have grown out of research into local home cooking, it carries the citrus's tang and scent, and turns crisp outside, molten inside, when toasted.
- Origin: Wakayama Arida
- About 460 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Mikan-mochi is a rice cake made by steaming Arida-grown mandarin oranges on top of mochi rice, then peeling them and pounding the fruit together with the rice. The color and fragrance of the mandarin carry through into the rice, giving each bite a bright, tangy sweetness. Eaten fresh it stays soft, but lightly toasting the surface crisps the outside while leaving the inside warm and gooey, offering two different ways to enjoy it.
How it's made
Mandarin oranges are steamed on top of mochi rice, then peeled and pounded together with the rice using a mallet. The fruit's flesh and peel infuse the rice with their fragrance, producing a cake with a bright, citrus tang. It can be eaten soft as is, or lightly grilled so the surface turns crisp while the inside stays soft and warm, a contrast many enjoy. In recent years, versions that pound in the peel or that come in bite-sized pieces have also been developed as local products.
Why it took this shape
The Arida region is such a prolific mandarin-growing area that its hillsides are described as nothing but orange groves, and cultivation is said to trace back to 1574, when Ito Magoemon brought seedlings home from Higo Province in Kyushu. With little flat land suited to rice farming but a mild climate well suited to citrus, the Kishu domain reportedly encouraged mandarin cultivation. Mikan-mochi is said to have emerged from efforts to turn this local specialty into a home-style treat, celebrating the fruit that came to define the area.
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 Wakayama
- BouriA whole, unpeeled parent taro is simmered over two days for this New Year's dish from the Ayukawa area of Tanabe City's Ото̄ district. One account holds that villagers gave up pounding mochi for six hundred years to atone for once turning away a fleeing prince, eating this in its place.
- Goma ToufuRaw sesame is skinned, ground, and worked with mountain water and Yoshino arrowroot into a simmered block of shojin cuisine. Said to have supplied protein for monks who abstained from meat and fish, it's now a familiar Koyasan souvenir and a fixture on Japanese menus.
- Gonpachi no Abura ItameGonbachi, formally known as itadori knotweed, is blanched, peeled, and quickly stir-fried in oil for this spring dish. Thick, well-grown stalks that snap with a crisp pop are prized for a crunchy bite and a faint sourness.
- Hatagonbo ZushiA stout, round burdock called hatagonbo, grown on the steep red-clay slopes of Hashimoto City's Nishihata district, is sliced into rounds, hollowed at the center, and packed with vinegared rice. Cultivation had nearly died out until a local cooperative revived it around 2013, roughly seventy years on.
- Igami no NitsukeIgami — what southern Wakayama calls the parrotfish — is simmered whole in a sweet-salty broth. Feeding on seaweed among winter rocks leaves it free of any off-flavor, and around Tanabe it's said to be served head-to-tail in place of sea bream for New Year's.