{"id":2747,"date":"2013-06-05T13:17:17","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T04:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/?p=2747"},"modified":"2013-06-05T13:17:17","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T04:17:17","slug":"mochi-diaries-ninja-kusa-dango-%e8%8d%89%e9%a4%85","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/2013\/06\/mochi-diaries-ninja-kusa-dango-%e8%8d%89%e9%a4%85\/","title":{"rendered":"Mochi Diaries:<\/b> Ninja Kusa Dango \u00e8\u008d\u2030\u00e9\u00a4\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I bring to the table The Mochi Diaries Chapter 5 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Ninja<\/i><\/b> Kusa Dango \u00e8\u008d\u2030\u00e9\u00a4\u2026<\/p>\n

I picked up this box on a recent trip to the\u00c2\u00a0Iga Ueno Ninja Festival (\u00e4\u00bc\u0160\u00e8\u00b3\u20ac\u00e4\u00b8\u0160\u00e9\u2021\u017d NINJA \u00e3\u0192\u2022\u00e3\u201a\u00a7\u00e3\u201a\u00b9\u00e3\u201a\u00bf\u00c2\u00a0)\u00c2\u00a0a 5 week event that is run by the city of Iga \u00e4\u00bc\u0160\u00e8\u00b3\u20ac\u00e5\u00b8\u201a in Mie prefecture \u00e4\u00b8\u2030\u00e9\u2021\u008d\u00e7\u0153\u0152 from April 1st<\/sup> to May 6th<\/sup> each year.\u00c2\u00a0When a couple of friends suggested hiring a car and driving down for the weekend I was more than excited, and keen to get my ninja on! To anyone that has not been, the trip comes with my highest recommendation!<\/p>\n

\"20121108-e58d88e5be8c032636\"<\/a>Anyhow on to the review: As a\u00c2\u00a0foreword,\u00c2\u00a0this mochi doesn’t actually have anything to do with ninja.\u00c2\u00a0In fact,\u00c2\u00a0rather than mochi, today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s review is about kusa dango \u00e8\u008d\u2030\u00e5\u203a\u00a3\u00e5\u00ad\u0090 (grass dango). Dango, whilst being almost identical to mochi, is a\u00c2\u00a0separate\u00c2\u00a0type of wagashi. Generally speaking the difference is that mochi is made by pounding\u00c2\u00a0glutinous\u00c2\u00a0rice into a dough whereas dango is made by adding water to mochiko \u00e9\u00a4\u2026\u00e7\u00b2\u2030 (glutinous\u00c2\u00a0rice flour) and boiling or grilling the resulting dough.<\/p>\n

\"7185_b2_2013_CS4\"<\/a>So why the ninja packaging? I suspect it results from an archaic reading of the kanji, \u00e8\u008d\u2030, which could once be read to mean \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcninja\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s essentially a pun!<\/p>\n

Unlike any\u00c2\u00a0mochi\u00c2\u00a0\u00e9\u00a4\u2026 or\u00c2\u00a0dango\u00c2\u00a0\u00e5\u203a\u00a3\u00e5\u00ad\u0090 that I have featured thus far, as opposed to the usual\u00c2\u00a0mochi\u00c2\u00a0outer layer filled with a sweet centre (usually\u00c2\u00a0azuki\u00c2\u00a0\u00e3\u0081\u201a\u00e3\u0081\u0161\u00e3\u0081\u008d) this\u00c2\u00a0kusa\u00c2\u00a0dango\u00c2\u00a0lies on a bed of\u00c2\u00a0anko\u00c2\u00a0\u00e9\u00a4\u00a1\u00e3\u0081\u201c (sweetened red bean paste). Instead of\u00c2\u00a0just popping them in your mouth, a small spoon is provided to scoop the dango up with a little anko on the side.<\/p>\n

\nLast summer, I became somewhat addicted to kakigori (shaved ice) and decided to get myself a machine to make it at home. Using the kusa dango, I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d try out the very traditional ujikintoki kakigori flavor which is typically topped with sweetened red bean paste, dango, and often capped with condensed milk. It was a great way to consume these little treats.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0\"20121108-e58d88e5be8c034436\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you see these guys floating around pick up a box and try making your own!<\/p>\n

\n

4\/5<\/span><\/h5>\n

\n

Daniel \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcTaco\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Taccone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I bring to the table The Mochi Diaries Chapter 5 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Ninja Kusa Dango \u00e8\u008d\u2030\u00e9\u00a4\u2026 I picked up this box on a recent trip to the\u00c2\u00a0Iga Ueno Ninja Festival (\u00e4\u00bc\u0160\u00e8\u00b3\u20ac\u00e4\u00b8\u0160\u00e9\u2021\u017d NINJA \u00e3\u0192\u2022\u00e3\u201a\u00a7\u00e3\u201a\u00b9\u00e3\u201a\u00bf\u00c2\u00a0)\u00c2\u00a0a 5 week event that is run by the city of Iga \u00e4\u00bc\u0160\u00e8\u00b3\u20ac\u00e5\u00b8\u201a in Mie prefecture \u00e4\u00b8\u2030\u00e9\u2021\u008d\u00e7\u0153\u0152 from April 1st to May 6th…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":2377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[355,325],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Photo-2012-07-02-\u00e5\u008d\u02c6\u00e5\u2030\u008d10-20-40.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}