oshiruko

The reason I made green tea ice cream was because I bought the wrong red bean when trying to make Ichigo Daifuku. I didn't want to waste the red bean so I tried making this dessert.


There are 2 kinds of red bean soup in Japanese dessert: zenzai and oshiruko. Zenzai is served cold and thick/less watery. Oshiruko is served hot and more watery. Both zenzai and oshiruko are served with mochi or shiratama/ glutinuous rice dumplings. Mine is combination *lol* because it is watery and I served it cold as I don't want the ice cream to melt fast.

Shiratama is similar to Chinese Tong Yuen. I put 50g of glutinuous rice and 50ml of water. Mix them until the dough is as soft as ear lobe.


Make the dough into small balls, flatten them with your palms. Press the middle so the dumplings can be cooked evenly. Put the dumplings into boil water. They will float when they are done.

Green Tea Ice Cream

When I told my sister that I made green tea ice cream, she was excited. "How did you make ice cream? Do you have ice cream maker?" she asked. "Nope, I bought Vanilla ice cream and green tea powder." I replied. Hoho yeah that was a cheat. As a matter of fact, there are many Japanese restaurants that do them this way as well. The secret is to get good quality of green tea powder.


It is easy to make.
1. Soften vanilla ice cream
2. Add some green tea powder and mix it. I bought 350ml tub and I put 5 teaspoons of green tea powder.
3. Put back into ice cream tub and freeze it.


Green tea ice cream with red bean and shiratama.

Ichigo Daifuku

One of my favorite Japanese dessert is Ichigo Daifuku. Daifuku is sweet Japanese glutinious rice cake/ mochi. Ichigo means strawberry. Ichigo Daifuku contains strawberry wrapped in red bean paste.


Red bean paste is a common daifuku filling, however mashed red bean is fine too. The thing about red bean paste is that you have to find the right kind, Japanese vs Chinese. Make sure to get Japanese red bean paste as the canned chinese red bean paste is a little too wet and not suitable for the daifuku filling.


How to make the filling:


1. Place a piece of lint-free cloth and put a spoonful of red bean paste.
2. Flatten the paste with the same piece of cloth.
3. Add a strawberry (stem removed) on top.
4. Using the cloth, wrap the paste around strawberry.
Paste can be wrapped by hand too. But by using a piece of cloth, it can remove excessive water from the paste.

The dough recipe can be found here Kyoto Cooking Circle