Botamochi / Ohagi
An interesting find just outside the Castle. Some stalls had been set up to sell food to visitors visiting Matsumoto Castle to view the blooming sakuras.
Extracted off Wikipedia:
Botamochi is a Japanese sweet made with glutinous rice, rice (ratio of 7:3, or only glutinous rice) and sweet azuki paste (red bean paste). They are made by soaking glutinous rice mixed rice (or only glutinous rice) for approximately 1 hour. The rice is then cooked, and a thick azuki paste is hand-packed around pre-formed balls of rice. Botamochi is eaten as sacred food as offering during the weeks of the spring and the autumn Higan in Japan.
A very similar sweet, ohagi, uses a slightly different texture of azuki paste, but is otherwise almost identical. It is made in autumn. Some recipe variations in both cases call for a coating of soy flour (Kinako) to be applied to the botamochi/ohagi after the azuki paste.
The two different names are derived from the Botan (Peony) which blooms in the spring and the Hagi (Japanese bush clover or Lespedeza) which blooms during autumn.
I can recognise the name of this dish by its Japanese moniker and the stall is selling Ohagi. This is supposed to be for Autumn and yet it was Spring.
Regardless of name, these snacks all take their flavour from the red bean paste or the soy flour coatings, as the carbohydrate's contribution is only textural (sticky-glutinous chewy).
Botamochi / Ohagi
An interesting find just outside the Castle. Some stalls had been set up to sell food to visitors visiting Matsumoto Castle to view the blooming sakuras.
Extracted off Wikipedia:
Botamochi is a Japanese sweet made with glutinous rice, rice (ratio of 7:3, or only glutinous rice) and sweet azuki paste (red bean paste). They are made by soaking glutinous rice mixed rice (or only glutinous rice) for approximately 1 hour. The rice is then cooked, and a thick azuki paste is hand-packed around pre-formed balls of rice. Botamochi is eaten as sacred food as offering during the weeks of the spring and the autumn Higan in Japan.
A very similar sweet, ohagi, uses a slightly different texture of azuki paste, but is otherwise almost identical. It is made in autumn. Some recipe variations in both cases call for a coating of soy flour (Kinako) to be applied to the botamochi/ohagi after the azuki paste.
The two different names are derived from the Botan (Peony) which blooms in the spring and the Hagi (Japanese bush clover or Lespedeza) which blooms during autumn.
I can recognise the name of this dish by its Japanese moniker and the stall is selling Ohagi. This is supposed to be for Autumn and yet it was Spring.
Regardless of name, these snacks all take their flavour from the red bean paste or the soy flour coatings, as the carbohydrate's contribution is only textural (sticky-glutinous chewy).