Sweets
Shio Anbin
Shio Anbin — mochi filled with salt-seasoned red bean paste
Mochi filled with red bean paste seasoned with salt instead of sugar, a new-rice harvest treat from northeastern Saitama. It dates to the mid-Edo period when sugar was scarce, and also marks children's growth celebrations.
- Origin: Saitama Kuki
- About 40 km north of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
This confection wraps a salt-seasoned red-bean paste, made with salt instead of sugar, in glutinous rice cake. Toning down the sweetness lets the plain, natural flavor of the red beans and rice come through, giving a restrained yet deeply satisfying taste that unfolds slowly with each chewy bite.
How it's made
Red beans, cooked soft, are seasoned with salt and worked into a smooth paste. Glutinous rice, soaked overnight, is steamed and pounded, divided into portions, and flattened out to wrap around the salted paste before being shaped round. It is often eaten with a sprinkle of sugar, though some grill it brushed with soy sauce, finishing in a slightly flattened round shape.
Why it took this shape
The confection is said to have grown from a workaround for scarce sugar, seasoning the bean paste with salt instead. Given at autumn festivals celebrating the new rice harvest and at seasonal celebrations marking a child's growth, it is said to have remained a handmade gift passed between relatives, rooted in local life and tied to customs marking a child's early birthdays.
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 Saitama
- Sakekasu Miso RamenA winter-only ramen from Ageo City, where sake lees from a long-running local brewery are worked into a Chinese restaurant's miso broth. The lees' depth and aroma layer over the miso's savoriness, leaving a mellow finish that warms the body in the cold months.
- Dojo NiPond loach caught in the paddies of eastern Saitama, simmered sweet and savory with shaved burdock, from a land fed by the Arakawa and Tone rivers. Rich in nutrients, it was valued as a tonic and a food for pregnant women.
- Gyoda Furai"Furai" from around Gyoda, Saitama, despite its name, isn't fried — it's grilled. Chopped scallion and pork go on a wheat-flour batter cooked on a griddle, an okonomiyaki-like snack said to have caught on with the women working the town's tabi-sock factories.
- Higashimatsuyama YakitoriPork cheek grilled over charcoal and brushed with a spicy miso sauce.
- HiyajiruSesame and miso ground in a mortar, mixed with summer vegetables like cucumber and shiso, then chilled with cold water. It serves as a dipping broth for udon in noodle-loving Saitama, and Kawajima town calls it suttate.