Sweets
Sasa Dango
Sasa dango — sweet bean dumplings wrapped in bamboo grass leaves
A 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.
- Origin: Niigata
- About 260 km north of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A dough of rice flour kneaded with mugwort is wrapped around sweet red bean paste, then folded in bamboo grass leaves and tied into a rice-bale shape with sedge cord. The mugwort's aroma and faint bitterness run through the dough, and the fresh scent of the leaves seeps into the rice cake, so that when you unwrap it, the gently sweet bean paste appears within. Fresh off the steamer it has a chewy, springy bite, a simple, deeply satisfying flavor.
How it's made
Mugwort, rehydrated in water, is kneaded into rice flour to form a cohesive dough. The dough is wrapped around sweet red bean paste and rolled into a ball, lightly brushed with oil, then carefully wrapped in three bamboo grass leaves and tied securely with sedge or rush cord. Steaming for about twenty minutes finishes it. The thin coat of oil keeps the rice cake from sticking to the leaf when it's time to eat.
Why it took this shape
Bamboo grass leaves have antibacterial properties, and wrapping rice or dough that doesn't keep well in them is said to have been a practical way to carry food. It's also said to have been a way to make good use of broken rice grains unfit for tax payment, and its shape, reminiscent of a rice bale, has been loved as fitting for a land known for rice. It remains an essential dish at festivals and rituals held to pray for a good harvest.
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
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.