Shiba Inu Mitarashi Dango
Have you ever had dango before? Dango is one of the Japanese traditional snacks, and I shaped them into cute Shiba Inu! They are served with sweet soy sauce glaze (aka Mitarashi Dango).
Equipment
- Large bowls
- Small bowls
- Large pot
- Saucepan
- Rice ball mold - Optional, product link in notes below
- Scissors - Optional
- Skewers - If making them on skewers
Ingredients
Dango
- 1 cup Joshinko 100 grams
- 1 cup Shiratamako 125 grams
- 8 oz Silken tofu 225 grams
- 2 teaspoons Sugar 10 grams
Sweet Soy Sauce Glaze
- 2 tablespoons Soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons Mirin (sweet cooking rice wine)
- 2 tablespoons Corn starch 15 grams
- 4 tablespoons Sugar 25 grams
- ⅔ cup water
Decoration
- Some seaweed (Nori) sheets
Instructions
Dango
- In a large bowl, mix Shiratamako, Joshinko, sugar, and silken tofu. Knead by hand until the dango dough becomes smooth and shapes into a ball. (If the dough is too dry to form a ball, add 1 teaspoon of warm water at a time and keep kneading.)
- Start boiling a large pot of water on low heat.
- Divide the dango dough into 10 equal pieces. Roll five of them into balls. Each ball should be about 1.5 inches in diameter.As for the rest of the five pieces, fit each dango dough into a Shiba Inu shape with the rice ball mold then gently push the dough out starting from the edges to keep the shape when removing from the mold. Or make any other shapes you like!If you are going for dango on skewer style, roll the dough into 1 inch in diameter. There will be more than 10 dango balls at the end.
- Boil the dango doughs in boiling water. Stir them occasionally to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Once the dango doughs float to the surface, they are fully cooked. Transfer them into a bowl filled with cold water.
- Drain the dango and place them on a plate. If you made dango for skewers, now is the time to piece them together into skewers. Set them aside.
Sweet Soy Sauce Glaze
- Combine all the ingredients for the glaze in a small bowl and mix well.
- Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and cook on the stovetop on medium heat.
- Continuously whisk the mixture until thickened. *The consistency changes very quickly and the mixture burns easily. So please keep a close eye on it!
- Once the glaze gets thickened, remove the saucepan from the heat and transfer the sauce to a container or bowl.
Decorate
- Pour the glaze on top of plated dango doughs with a spoon. For the ball, you can pour the glaze all over on top. For the Shiba Inu dango doughs, pour the glaze on the top half of Shiba Inu's faces.
- Cut the seaweed with the seaweed cutting tool that came with the rice ball mold. Place a piece of seaweed sheet on top of the red mat. Then place the mold you like on top and push it evenly against the seaweed sheets. Once you hear the crunching noise of seaweed getting cut out, lift the mold and pick up the seaweed cutouts.Or cut the seaweed sheets with scissors into shapes.
- Place the seaweed cutouts on top of dango doughs. I placed paw prints on the dango balls and Shiba Inu faces on the rest.