(speaking foreign language)
- [Alvin] Hello! Welcome back to another episode
of Anime with Alvin.
We are gonna be recreating the mitarashi dango
from one of my favorite anime, Demon Slayer.
This is dangoko, a pre-made mix of rice flours
used to make dango, but we are gonna make ours from scratch.
But before we get to that, the first thing we have to do
is soak some bamboo skewers in water.
The reason for doing so will be shown later.
All right, onto the dango.
We're gonna be balancing two different kinds of rice flour.
The first one is called joshinko.
It adds a nice chewy and bouncy texture to the dango.
The second one is called shiratamako,
which you might have seen from our Jujutsu Kaizen episode,
where we made mochi.
This flour adds a smoother, fresher,
tender texture to the dango.
And because this is my first time making dango,
I've referenced two recipes
for the version I'm showing you today.
One is from Miss Wagashi,
and the other is from Leo's Japanese Dojo.
Both of them have wonderful Japanese recipes on YouTube,
so please check them out.
So once both rice flours are mixed together,
I'm slowly streaming in water while mixing simultaneously
with some chopsticks.
The goal is to mix the water and the flour together evenly
and slowly without any huge lumps or clumps.
Once the flour has been sufficiently hydrated,
I go in directly with my hands, kneading this into
a smooth ball and rolling it out into one long even...
Snake? Followed by using a bench scraper
to cut these into evenly-sized dumplings.
Kind of like gnocci.
Now, after probably one of the most satisfying shots
I've ever seen, I'm gonna roll each of these dumplings
into a smooth ball.
As a Chinese person, this is quite similar to making
something called tangyuan, but we'll save that episode
for another day.
And after these balls have been delicately placed
onto a plate, I'm wrapping them up, setting them aside,
and trying out a really interesting version I saw
from Miss Wagashi's video.
So this version still begins with the same joshinko
rice flour, but instead of the shiratamako and water,
we're going to substitute in silken tofu,
which I believe accomplishes two things.
Shiratamako might not be the easiest thing to find,
and silken tofu is more readily available for the home cook.
And not only does the silken tofu provide
the liquid content, it also should act as
a tenderness substitute for the shiratamako.
But the process is the same, kneading them together
until they form a smooth dough ball,
rolling it out until it becomes a long smooth rice snake,
and finally cutting them up and rolling them up
into beautiful small rice dumplings.
And while these go off to the side to hang out
with their non-tofu brethren,
we are gonna make the mitarashi sauce.
This is gonna be the glaze that goes on top of our dango.
It's a pretty simple sweet and savory sauce
made from mirin, soy sauce, water, and after the liquids
are combined in a medium saucepan over medium heat,
I'm adding in the dry ingredients,
first mixing the potato starch and sugar to avoid any lumps
when it hits the liquids and constantly stirring
as the syrup thickens.
If it gets too thick, I add a little bit of water,
but the end result should be a beautiful
honey-like consistency.
And this is gonna go off to the side to cool
while we cook our dumplings.
Now, into a big pot of boiling water,
I'm dropping in the dumplings one by one.
For efficiency's sake, I'm throwing in both kinds,
but the key here is just to make sure
that they don't stick to the bottom.
So a little shake, a little stir, and these cook
for about three to five minutes, until they start to float.
Once they float, these go for another two to three minutes,
and then these come straight out of the hot water
and into an ice bath, both to stop the cooking process
and to shock them into a chewier, bouncier texture.
Once the dumplings are cool, they come out onto a tray
lined with parchment paper to dry for a little bit,
and it's very important that these are separated
into two different battalions with even ranks
of perfectly lined up soldiers, ready for war.
This is because it looks nice.
If any of the dumplings break rank,
it is important to eat them to send a message.
Now that order has been maintained,
it's time to skewer these
onto the bamboo skewers from earlier.
This can range anywhere between in three and five dumplings
per skewer, but in the show they do four,
so I am also doing four.
And both for appearance and safety reasons,
I like to make sure that the final dumpling on top
is only skewered about 75% through.
Now, this is where things get kind of interesting.
I mentioned to Andrew that dango are often grilled
on a Japanese-style grill with some charcoal,
and he mentioned that he happened to have something similar,
as well as some charcoal.
This is binchotan.
It is a highly prized and expensive type of charcoal
because of the way it burns cleanly
and silently without smoke.
It is often used in restaurants to impart really nice
flavors to whatever ever is being grilled, usually meat.
We have never really used it professionally,
so what you see here is two amateurs
trying to figure out the best way to make this work at home.
After a lot of YouTube video-watching article-reading
trial and error, we managed to heat the charcoal somewhat
before putting it inside the grill,
where, once again, the ball is back in my court
to see if I can do something with this.
We definitely didn't do this the correct way.
The charcoal didn't seem to get hot enough,
and rather than getting a nice crispy outside,
the dango kind of started to melt instead.
So we improvised by taking the grill rack upstairs
and onto the stove so that the dango could be cooked
directly over an open flame.
This dango can also be grilled in a non-sick pan,
but I'd love to know how we could have done
the charcoal part better, so please leave a comment.
But after two hours of perseverance from both Andrew
and Jess, we're finally able to glaze our crispy dango.
And the glaze had definitely cooled by then,
so after warming it up on the stove for a little bit,
I'm slowly spooning this honey-like substance
over each skewer of dango, and this is the payoff.
Watching that beautiful golden glaze just slowly melt
over that smooth whiteness of the dumplings...
It's amazing.
I can totally see why someone would fall in love
with this snack and just want to eat it all the time.
So after a lot more effort than usually required,
this is my version of the mitarashi dango from Demon Slayer.
A little quick inspection
before we go for the quality check.
This is amazing.
You have the sweet, salty glaze
with the crispy but chewy soft dango.
It's amazing. I love this.
But we also need to try the tofu version.
Huh. So the one made with tofu instead of shiratamako
is actually a little more firm and bouncy
than the one from before.
Personally, I prefer the one made with the shiratamako,
but if it's not something you can find at home,
I think the tofu version works extremely well.
But if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna take both of these plates
and slowly snack on them as I watch
that crazy finale episode one more time.
(smooth music)