Sweets
Yudemochi
Yudemochi — flat disc of wheat dough wrapped around red bean paste and boiled
Wheat dough wrapped around sweet red bean paste is rolled into a thin, flat disc and boiled in hot water — a sweet from Taketa and Bungo-Ono, thin enough that the filling shows through and rare in this form elsewhere in Japan, once eaten between spells of farm work.
- Origin: Oita Taketa
- About 820 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Yudemochi is an Oita confection made by wrapping sweet azuki bean paste in wheat-flour dough, flattening it into a thin disc, and boiling it in hot water. Rolled thin enough that the filling shows through, it cooks quickly and comes out with a soft, chewy texture. Sweet potato or pumpkin paste sometimes stands in for azuki, and some households knead mugwort or purple sweet potato into the dough for color.
How it's made
Wheat flour is mixed with salt and water into a dough kneaded to the softness of an earlobe, then wrapped around sweet azuki paste and shaped into a ball. It is rolled thin and round with a rolling pin and dropped into boiling water to cook. If the filling sits off-center or the dough is rolled too thin, the skin tends to tear, so both wrapping and rolling are said to take a practiced hand. It is best eaten warm straight from the pot, and wrapping it in plastic wrap is said to keep the skin from drying out.
Why it took this shape
Much of Oita's land drained poorly and was ill-suited to rice paddies, so wheat cultivation took hold instead, and a flour-based food culture is said to have developed across the region. Yudemochi is one of several flour-based sweets alongside dishes like ishigaki-mochi and jiriyaki, and it is said to have been a favorite as a children's snack and a break-time bite during farm work. Rolling it thin so it cooks quickly is said to reflect the practical need to finish eating within a short rest period.
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
Contrast
- Ishigaki MochiCut sweet potato is kneaded with wheat flour and water, shaped, and steamed — an Oita sweet said to be named for its rough, stone-wall-like surface, once shared as a between-chores snack across the prefecture.
- Oita SakemanjuA 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.
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.