Mitarashi Dango - Japanese Sweet rice dumpling on he stick

Today we made a variation of Mitarashi Dango. This traditional sweets are small grilled rise dumpling that are skewered on wooden sticks, usually in groups of 3 or 5 which are covered with a thick sweet soy sauce. As it is made of rice powder it is a gluten free and vegan. Apart from very tasty and one of our teenagers favorite Japanese desert it is very healthy compared to a heavy chocolate cake. (I like heavy chocolate cake though 😏)

 

As mentioned, traditionally, you would get Mitarashi Dango only with a sweet sauce (in the center of the photo). The front one on our photo is covered with Kinako (ground roasted soy bean powder) and sugar. The one at the back is covered with Anko (sweet red beans)

Recipe here

This reminds me on spring, the cherry blossom season. This is what my grandma used to buy for me, when we where sitting below the flowering cherry trees. I liked Mitarashi Dango so much, that I could not focus on the beauty of cherry blossom...😂 Judge for yourself! Would you be able to focus?

Sukiyaki! with Wagyu beef

We were lucky to find a nice piece of real japanese wagyu beef, so we decided to use part if it for one of our favourite wagyu dishes - Sukiyaki.
This is a traditional hotpot dish (nabemono), where thinly sliced beef is cooked in a sweetish soy based stock together with vegetables, grilled tofu, shitake and shirataki (white konyaku noodles).

As it is tradition with hotpot in Japan, the food will be taken out of the pot, shortly placed in a bowl with sauce and then be eaten with chopsticks. In case of Sukiyaki, it is normal to use a scrambled raw egg as sauce. This might sound strange, but it is really tasty!

Everyone loves Sukiyaki!