Sweets
Ocha Mochi
Ocha mochi — flattened rice dumplings on a skewer, brushed with sweet walnut sauce
Rice-flour dumplings are skewered, flattened, steamed and grilled with a walnut glaze — a Morioka-area treat once toasted over the hearth, its name said to come from a resemblance to a war-fan shape.
- Origin: Iwate Morioka
- About 460 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
A mochi confection from central Iwate: dumplings made from non-glutinous rice flour, skewered and flattened, coated with a walnut sauce and grilled. It was once grilled over the household hearth until lightly charred and eaten hot, it is said. The walnut sauce comes in soy or miso versions, and the treat has long been beloved as a farm-work snack and children's treat.
How it's made
Non-glutinous rice flour is kneaded with hot water, shaped into flat dumplings, skewered two or three at a time, steamed, then coated with walnut sauce and grilled. The sauce comes in soy and miso versions, it is said, and before the sauce is applied the dumplings can be frozen. Walnuts run so deep in Iwate's food culture that "delicious" is sometimes expressed with the phrase kurumi-aji, "walnut flavor."
Why it took this shape
The central region, opened early to rice paddies along the Kitakami River, still saw years of crop failure from cold damage, and barley, wheat and buckwheat cultivation, along with a culture built on flour, developed alongside rice farming, it is said. The name is said to derive from a resemblance to a war-fan-shaped uchiwa, later slurred into its current form, and the dish is thought to have taken hold widely as a snack for breaks in farm work.
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
Contrast
- KirisenshoSteamed rice flour is kneaded with walnut and sesame, sweetened with soy sauce and sugar, and shaped into ovals or leaf forms — a snack from central Iwate's rice country, offered at the Girls' Festival or eaten during farm-work breaks.
- Kurumi TofuGround, strained walnut is thickened with sugar and kudzu starch, set firm and sliced in place of raw fish — a shojin dish from Oshu's Esashi area, served with a sweet miso-and-ginger sauce, made with local "oni-gurumi" walnuts.
Also from Iwate
- Azuki BattoRested wheat dough cut into wide noodle strips is served in a sugar-sweetened red-bean broth — made along the Sanriku coast for building-raising and harvest celebrations, with a custom of eating it seven times on the seventh day of Obon for good health.
- Hecchoko DangoDumplings of millet and sorghum flour, each dimpled in the center, are simmered in a sweet red-bean soup — also called "ukiuki dango," a harvest-close treat from rice-poor northern Iwate where they float to the surface as they cook.
- Hina ManjuRice-flour dough tinted with food coloring is wrapped around red-bean paste and shaped into flowers, peaches or rabbits using wooden molds — tied to a doll-viewing custom in Hanamaki's Ohasama area, offered alongside kirisensho at the Girls' Festival.
- Hizu NamasuThin slices of cartilage from a salmon's head — "hizu" — are salted, cured in vinegar and tossed with daikon and carrot namasu — a rare delicacy from just one small part of the fish, a New Year dish where salmon run up Miyako Bay.
- Dento Mochi RyoriAn umbrella term for some 300 ways of dressing mochi — sweet red bean, edamame paste, walnut, natto, zoni and more. A domain-era custom of pounding mochi twice a month left Ichinoseki with a "mochi calendar" of 60-plus occasions a year and a formal ceremonial mochi course still observed today.
- Imo no Ko JiruAutumn taro is simmered with chicken, tofu, daikon and carrot in a soy broth — a fall favorite of the taro-growing Kitakami river valley, still enjoyed at riverside "imoni-kai" gatherings around Kitakami's Futako district.