Back to all recipes

Mitarashi Dango

みたらし団子, Kyoto

🇯🇵 Japan Desserts medium 30 min prep · 15 min cook serves 5 skewers 45 min start to table ~220 kcal per piece surprise

Sticky rice dumplings for dessert, glazed with soy sauce. It reads like a takeout order gone wrong, and it is one of Japan's oldest street sweets.

Soy sauce is essentially liquid salt and umami, and the glaze uses it the way a caramel uses sea salt. Sugar and mirin cook into a sticky syrup, the soy keeps it savory and deep, and the charred, nearly flavorless rice dumpling underneath soaks it all up.

🍡🧂
The story

Mitarashi dango traces back to the Kamo Mitarashi Tea House by Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto. The name refers to the mitarashi, the purification water font at the shrine entrance, whose bubbles the skewered dumplings supposedly mimic; the original five-ball skewer was also read as a human body, one head and four limbs, offered at the shrine before being eaten.

From temple snack it spread to street stalls and festivals nationwide, and today it is everyday food: convenience stores, supermarkets, and tea shops all carry it, usually three or four dumplings to a stick, charred and dripping glaze.

Fair warning: These are chewy, dense mochi-family dumplings, not soft cake, and they turn hard within hours, so eat them fresh.
The recipe

Ingredients

  • 100 g (3.5 oz) joshinko (non-glutinous rice flour)or replace both flours with 200 g dangoko
  • 100 g (3.5 oz) shiratamako (glutinous rice flour)
  • 160 ml (2/3 cup) just-boiled wateradded gradually; you may not need it all
  • 150 ml (2/3 cup) water, for the glaze
  • 60 g (4-5 tbsp) sugar
  • 30 ml (2 tbsp) soy sauce
  • 30 ml (2 tbsp) mirin
  • 1.5 tbsp potato starch or cornstarchfor thickening
  • 5 bamboo skewerssoaked in water 10 minutes

Method

  1. Whisk the two rice flours together in a bowl.
  2. Add the just-boiled water a little at a time, stirring with chopsticks or a spatula, then knead by hand until the dough is smooth and about as firm as an earlobe.
  3. Roll into 16 even balls, roughly 20 g each, keeping them under a damp cloth as you work.
  4. Drop the balls into a large pot of boiling water; once they float to the surface, boil 2 minutes more.
  5. Scoop them straight into a bowl of iced water and cool completely.
  6. Drain and thread 3 or 4 dumplings onto each skewer.
  7. Char the skewers under a hot broiler or in a dry skillet, a few minutes per side, until spotted brown.
  8. For the glaze, stir the 150 ml water, sugar, soy sauce, and mirin in a small saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.
  9. Whisk the starch with 2 tablespoons of cold water, stream it in, and keep whisking until the glaze turns glossy and thick enough to coat a spoon, about 1 to 2 minutes.
  10. Spoon the glaze generously over the skewers, or dunk them straight into the pan.
  11. Eat the same day; a few seconds of steaming or microwaving revives any that have firmed up.
Shopping notes
Joshinko, shiratamako, or all-in-one dangoko are at Japanese groceries or online; mochiko from regular supermarkets can stand in but gives a softer, stickier dumpling. Ordinary soy sauce and mirin from any supermarket are fine.
Cross-checked against: justonecookbook.com · en.wikipedia.org
Kitchen notes

Cooked it? Say how it went. Tweaks, substitutions, honest verdicts, all welcome.

Loading notes...