Oshiruko, A Winter Japanese Dish of Beans and Rice

Atsuki beans can be bought dried or canned. They are used in a rice dish eaten on special occasions, sekihan, and to fill glutinous rice cakes or mochi. A bowl of sweetened atsuki beans are also served with mochi in them. Those things that look bars of soap are the glutinous rice cakes before they are cooked. After they are heated they become gooey. They should be eaten carefully.

Click on the labels below to see other posts about mochi and sekihan.

Boy's Day 2009

Baba and Aunt brought sekihan, mochi and shobu upstairs today. Check old posts about our Boy's Day celebrations by clicking on the labels below. There is also more information at Kids Web Japan.

Kids Web Japan --Boy's Day/Children's Day
Kids Web Japan--Golden Week

Red Rice

Big Sister and I went out to buy sekihan, red rice, this afternoon. The white rice turns red after it is cooked with azuki beans. She took entrance exams for two high schools this month. She passed the first exam and found out today that she passed the other one. It is the school she really wants to attend, so she was happy. We decided to celebrate. Red rice is eaten for celebrations.

Baba was going to make it, but then she reserved some at this neighborhood shop. This shop also sells Japanese cakes called wagashi.

The shopkeeper was upstairs eating his dinner when we walked in. A bell sounded as we opened the door. How did we know he was eating dinner? It was dinner time, and he came downstairs chewing and wiping his mouth!

He weighed the red rice and then put it in a plastic container. He wrapped it in a narrow sheet of paper.

He also gave us a small bag of black goma, sesame seeds. They are sprinkled on top of the rice.