Posts Tagged: Red Beans

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24
Jun 11

Pan: Japanese Bread

Elsewhere on the site, we’ve discussed manju, “steam buns,” and briefly, we mentioned anpan as well. A look at Japanese food wouldn’t be complete without a more in-depth look at Japanese bread. Due to early Portuguese influence, the Japanese refer to bread as “pan,” the Portuguese word for “bread.” Pan was introduced to Japan by Westerners in the 19th century and did not exist in native Japanese cuisine beforehand. While sandwiches like we’re used to in the West are still less common than rice dishes in Japan, there are a number of Japanese foods made with pan.

The anpan, as previously mentioned, is sweet bread filled with sweet filling. It’s definitely more of a dessert than a meal. However, like manju, there are hearty meal fillings for pan as well. Curry pan is filled with Japanese curry, katsu pan has fried pork cutlets inside (yes, fried, breaded pork inside of the break), croquette pan has a croquette inside (a croquette is fried mixture of potatoes and other vegetables as well as potentially meat and seafood), and yakisoba pan is filled with yakisoba–fried noodles!–and ginger. Operating as both a dessert and a potential meal depending on your mood, the fruit sandwich is another common Japanese sandwich. Fresh-cut fruit is layered in bread with a yogurt cream.

Panko refers not to a sandwich-like treat but to a form of breading. Panko is a popular coating for fried meats, seafood, and vegetables. Panko is a lighter, crisper texture than other Western breading. This is unsurprising due the fact that Japanese bread tastes different than Western bread.

When you order a hamburger, you have to make sure that you’re in an American-style restaurant if you’re looking for a hamburger on a bun. Most Japanese hamburgers are served as patties on plates without bread. Until about the 1970s, foreigners in Japan looking to make hamburgers had a hard time finding hamburger buns!

Have you ever tried Japanese pan? Do you prefer the dessert breads or the meal breads? Do you like hamburgers without buns?

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5
May 10

Japan’s Golden Week, Part 2

Golden Week continues in Japan and we continue our coverage of the holidays. April 29th was the first day to feature a specific holiday. The next is May 3rd, which is Constitutional Amendment Day (kenpou kinenbi).

Constitutional Amendment Day was established in 1947 to honor the first day the country came under the laws of the Constitution of Japan, which was developed alongside the Allied Forces. The Constitution turned Japan into a liberal democracy. (It was previously a militaristic, imperialistic system.) It greatly lessened the role of the imperial family, making them more figureheads than policy makers, and also declared that the country would never again declare war. Instead, Japan would only defend itself if necessary, which is why the Japanese military is now called the “Japanese Self-Defense Forces.” The meaning behind the day is for Japanese citizens to reflect on democracy and government. It’s also the one day per year in which the National Diet Building (where the government—the House of Councillors and the House of Representatives—convenes) is open for public tours.

As discussed previously, the next holiday, Greenery Day, takes place on May 4th. Golden Week’s last national holiday is on May 5th —today! Children’s Day (kodomo no hi) is meant to celebrate children and their fun-loving, innocent personalities as well as to honor parents (particularly mothers) for raising them. It was originally known as Boys’ Day and was meant only to celebrate sons (as there is another holiday in March to celebrate daughters), but it was changed in 1948 to Children’s Day to celebrate all children.

An iconic symbol of Children’s Day is the koi (carp)-shaped koinobori flags. Households traditionally hang these flags from their rooftops, one for each of the parents and each of the children who live inside. Another tradition is to display a Kintarou (a fabled adventurous boy) doll and a kabuto (samurai helmet) inside the house, as these are symbols of healthy and strong boys. Today in Japan, many families are eating kashiwa-mochi (red bean rice cakes wrapped in oak leaves) and chimaki (sweetened rice paste in a bamboo or iris leaf) to celebrate.

Have you ever heard of Children’s Day or Constitutional Amendment Day? Do you think it’s fair that Boys’ Day was changed to Children’s Day when there’s still a Girls’ Day?

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19
Feb 10

Japanese Pastries: Red Beans and Rice

While Japan has a plethora of “Western-style” bakeries in which you’ll find the typical cakes, cookies, cupcakes, éclairs and other pastries you’re used to finding in North America or Europe, no trip to Japan is complete without sampling the classic sweets that are uniquely Japanese. Like in the West, chocolate is a popular filling for modern Japanese sweets, but for the classics, don’t be surprised to find fillings made from ingredients like red beans and rice.

No, Japanese pastries are not filled with actual chunky beans and rice. Anko is a word you’ll often see when ordering Japanese pastries. It refers to a red bean (azuki) paste that’s mildly sweet and has been the main ingredient of Japanese pastries long before things like chocolate made their way to Japan.

Anko is a popular fillings in classic Japanese pastries such as taiyaki (a fish-shaped cake—and no, it doesn’t taste anything like fish), manju (a steamed bun based on an ancient Chinese dish—read more here), dorayaki (a pancake-like pastry with filling), and shiritama (dumplings).

Rice isn’t usually a filling but a sweet in and of itself. By fermenting the rice, Japanese pastry-makers can get the rice into a sweet, gelatinous consistency like that in mochi (rice cake), daifuku (sweet rice cake), and shiruko (a soup made of sweet rice cake).

One popular classic Japanese pastry is anpan. Anpan is literally a sweet bread filled with a sweet filling that dates back to the late 1800s. Typical classic fillings include anko, pickled cherry blossoms, chestnut jam, white bean jam, and green pea jam and modern fillings include chocolate cream, custard, fruit-flavored cream and cream cheese. While it sounds like enough to send anyone running to the dentist, the Japanese version of “sweet” is quite different than you may be used to in the West. Even Western-style cakes in Japan are mildly sweet. Japanese-made pastries are delicious without being cringe-worthy sweet. You won’t find yourself scraping off frosting to avoid getting cavities.

If you’re ever in Tokyo, consider taking the train about an hour outside of the city to Saitama’s Kashiya Yokocho (“Confectioners’ Alley”). This classic-style alley of mom-and-pop-style homemade pastry and candy stores is made to elicit the feelings of 1950s Japan. The popular ingredient for pastries there are sweet potatoes. You can find sweet potato anpan, ice cream, chips, coffee and even beer.

The mild sweetness of Japanese sweets can truly only be tasted to be understood, so track down the nearest Japanese style bakery and give it a try. One popular chain of Japanese supermarkets in the US is Mitsuwa, which has one location in New Jersey (only a 20-minute shuttle ride from Manhattan), one outside of Chicago, and six in California.

What’s your favorite Japanese pastry? What’s the best Japanese pastry filling?