Kashi Simplified: Tsukimi Dango... And a give away!

It's autumn!

The autumn season kicks off with a tsukimi, or a moon viewing party. Traditionally, the official moon viewing date is the 15th day of the eighth month, but nowadays it's an autumn event. Whenever the moon looks nice and bright, it calls for a moon viewing party.

According to About.com tsukimi is "done in a quiet manner." Traditionally, flame grass and other autumn flowers (like cosmos and Japanese gentians) are decorated in a vase. Food wise, dango (rice dumplings), taro roots, roasted chestnuts, and edamame are offered to the moon in an alter. Usually, plain dumplings are stacked in a nice pyramid.

Traditionally, dango is made purely with rice flour. After it is offered to the moon, it is eaten with some sweet soy sauce or soy flour-sugar mixture. Here at Teacipes, we like to jazz things up a little (and add some nutritional value to it!).

Dango is very easy to make, so we'll teach you how to make some here at Teacipes.com!

Tsukimi Dango with matcha & kinako

5 parts rice flour (Mochi-ko or Shiratama-ko will suffice)

3 parts silken tofu

toppings:

kinako (soy flour)***

brown sugar

Maeda-en Sweet Green Tea

1. Combine rice flour and tofu, and knead until the dough is 'as soft as your earlobes'. It it's a little stiff, just add more tofu. Don't strain the tofu, it's your water source.

2. Bring a pot of water to a boil (don't forget the salt!) and throw in 10 dango balls at a time. Boil until it floats up to surface, then rescue the balls out and rinse under cold water briefly. Repeat until all the dangos are done.

3. Combine 1 tablespoon of kinako and a table spoon of brown sugar in a small bowl.

4. Roll half the (well-drained) dango in kinako-sugar, and the other half in Sweet Green Tea.

5. Serve with a nice cup of iced green tea. (Houji-cha if you're drinking it at night time!)

** Mochiko is sweet rice flour, and is stickier than other grain flours. This can be purchased at most Asian markets, and online.
*** Kinako is soy flour, and has a mellow, nutty flavor to it. It's often used as a topping for traditional Japanese desserts. For another kinako recipe, check out this one at CHOW.

We also have a give away!!! See those chopsticks? Taku brought them back from his last business trip to Japan.
These are called kuromoji, and they're chopsticks that are used solely for picking your kashi out of a platter during a tea ceremony. They're hand made, hand carved from gourds. Just soak them in water for 15 minutes before use, and voila! Even the stickiest mochi/dango can't cling to these.
We have 5 sets, so if you want one, leave a comment! I'll pick out 5 random winners using the random number generator and announce the winners on Friday :)