Sweets
Oita Sakemanju
Oita sakemanju — steamed bun leavened with fermented rice-koji yeast, filled with sweet red bean paste
A yeast starter made from steamed rice and rice koji leavens a wheat dough wrapped around sweet red bean paste and steamed — a sweet from Taketa and Bungo-Ono raised purely by koji fermentation, its starter once handed down within a family from batch to batch.
- Origin: Oita Taketa
- About 820 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Sake-manju, from the Toyohi region spanning Taketa and Bungo-Ono, is a steamed bun leavened with rice-koji fermentation and filled with sweet azuki bean paste. The soft dough, with a faint tang from the koji and the sweetness of the filling, gives it a simple, homey flavor. Fillingless versions also exist and go by other local names, such as "shiira" or "bappo," depending on the area.
How it's made
Cooked rice is mixed with koji and left for about two days to form a yeast liquid. Wheat flour is sifted with a pinch of salt, mixed with the yeast liquid, and kneaded until it reaches the softness of an earlobe. Sweet bean paste is wrapped inside, the bun is set on a sarsaparilla leaf, and it is left to rest for several hours so fermentation can raise the dough before it is steamed. A portion of each batch of dough is dried and kept as a starter, reportedly used to help the next batch ferment.
Why it took this shape
In the Toyohi region, ringed by the Sobo-Katamuki mountains and the outer rim of Mount Aso, sake-manju is said to have been eaten at summer observances such as the Boys' Festival, Obon, and local festivals. Because it relies on fermenting rice koji, it is said to be easier to make in the warmer months. Since the quality of the starter is said to shape how the buns turn out, passing it down through generations was reportedly the custom in the past. Eaten warm off the steamer, it also warms the body in winter, which is said to be why it has been enjoyed year-round.
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 Oita
- Aji no MaruzushiA whole horse mackerel, cured in plum vinegar and opened flat, is wrapped around vinegared rice and rolled in red shiso leaf — a celebratory sushi from Saiki, painstaking to prepare, built on the rich mackerel landed from the Bungo Channel.
- AmimeshiKrill simmered sweet-savory in mirin, soy sauce, and ginger is folded into freshly steamed rice — a dish from the Usa, Nakatsu, and Bungotakada coast, where krill are hauled from the Buzen Sea tideflats each autumn and winter; a favorite of the northern Oita coast.
- Atama RyoriGills, jaw, and innards of a large fish like grouper are quickly parboiled along with the flesh and piled onto a single platter — a dish from inland Taketa, far from the sea, said to have grown from a wish to waste nothing of a rare catch, served with a citrus dipping sauce.
- Ayu UrukaAyu (sweetfish) flesh or innards are minced with salt and left to ferment for about a week — an Oita salted delicacy said to have begun as a way to keep the clean river's seasonal catch; the innards-only version, nigauruka, carries a distinctive bitterness.
- Beppu ReimenThe dish's spread is traced to around 1950, when a cook repatriated from what had been Manchuria began making cold noodles in Beppu. Genso Arirang, founded that same year, is often named as the pioneering shop; the local style pairs a Japanese-style seafood stock with noodles made from buckwheat, wheat, and starch.
- Dango-jiruWheat dough kneaded and stretched into flat ribbons is simmered with root vegetables and shiitake in a barley-miso broth — an everyday Oita dish born of the prefecture's flour-based food culture, where poor rice land pushed wheat to the fore; the ribbons keep a firmer bite than udon.