Sweets
Tagane Mochi
Tagane Mochi — a flat, sea-cucumber-shaped rice cake of mochi and non-glutinous rice
Glutinous and non-glutinous rice are steamed and pounded together into a flat, sea-cucumber-shaped cake, its mix-ins — green nori, soybeans, shiso seeds — varying by town around Lake Kasumigaura. Grilled or fried, it is a New Year's favorite.
- Origin: Ibaraki
- About 100 km northeast of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Glutinous and regular rice are steamed together, pounded, and shaped into a flat, oval loaf like a sea cucumber. Households in Ishioka and Kasumigaura mix in green laver, those in the mountainous Daigo area add soybeans and white sesame, and Kanashigo's Hokota adds shiso seeds — the mix-ins vary by place. The rice keeps a grainy bite and the beans add crunch, turning fragrant once grilled, with sweetness building as you chew.
How it's made
Glutinous rice soaked overnight and regular rice soaked briefly are steamed together, then pounded in a rice-pounding machine while green laver, salt, or white sesame is worked in. It's shaped into an oval loaf, sliced about a centimeter thick before it fully hardens, and grilled. It's eaten plain with soy sauce, dropped into New Year's zoni soup, or sliced thin and fried like a rice cracker.
Why it took this shape
In the grain-rich lowlands between Lake Kasumigaura and the Tone River, both glutinous and regular rice grew well, and mixing the two is said to have stretched the harvest while keeping the rice's own flavor. Steaming and pounding without fully smoothing the rice is thought to preserve a bite different from ordinary mochi, and the local variations — laver, soybeans, shiso seeds — still persist today.
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 Ibaraki
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.