To a Westerner raised on brownies, apple crisp and root beer floats, the mere idea of daifuku — a sweet rice dumpling stuffed with mashed beans, necessitates a malleable mind. It is an altogether strange sensation to chew on this foreign combination of textures for the first time — the dense, sticky dough, The starchy exterior, the creamy and slightly chalky interior — and yet, at least in my case, a surprisingly pleasant one. A sensation I wouldn’t have minded experiencing again, and which I occasionally did.

I used to enjoy buying daifuku at the local Japanese grocery, sampling the limited variety: small, big, green, pink, white, coated in sesame seeds or studded with whole adzuki beans. I delighted in choosing from the individually wrapped treats in the display case, and in the delicate crinkling as I removed the thin plastic film. I enjoyed the weight and the smoothness of the plump treat cuddled in my palm, at once heavy and dainty, and the comfort of sinking my teeth through the dense, elastic dough and into the treasure within, a soft ball of sweetened adzuki beans.

What a stark contrast to the richness of Western desserts, which rely heavily on dairy and eggs to create its velvety, moist, airy, flaky or crispy textures. Comparing daifuku to a French choux a la crème (which, ironically, is very much enjoyed in Japan today) is a great way to illustrate the different historical currents that shape culinary traditions.

In Search of Sweetness

As I detailed in a previous post, Japanese cuisine developed without the use of animal fats (or of much fat whatsoever). In addition, sugar, now an essential condiment in the Japanese pantry, was not in widespread use until fairly recently.

The Japanese word for sweets, kashi (菓子), or okashi (お菓子), was first used to designate a variety of snack foods to be eaten with tea, from dried fruit and rice cakes to dried octopus. Sweeteners were scarce before the arrival of the Portuguese, who welcomed Japan into the global trade of sugar. Honey was rare, and native fruits were far more bitter or sour than they were sweet, and needed be dried or processed before eating. Sugar itself had been know from at least the eighth century, but was used primarily for medicinal purposes. As historian Michael Ashkenazi writes: “the chefs of the Heian imperial court sought for substitutes for those with a sweet tooth. These they found in three main substances: natural sugars that occur in glutinous rice, sugars from malted grains, and azuki beans.” And even after the introduction and widespread adoption of sugar, these substances came to form the basis of traditional Japanese confectionery, termed wagashi (和菓子) to differentiate them from Western confectionery, yogashi (洋菓子).

Wagashi in its contemporary incarnation developed during the Edo period. It was influenced by Chinese sweets and snacks (dim sum) and a legacy of Portuguese culinary influence from the previous era. (eg. kasutera and konpeito). Most important, though, was the influence of kaiseki (懐石), the cuisine that developed in tandem with the tea ceremony. As such, it shares many of the characteristics that so distinguish the Japanese tea ceremony: the importance of freshness, the meticulous attention to aesthetics, and the allusions to the seasons, though shape, colour, flavour, and ingredients.

Beyond Sweetness: A Personal Quest

When I transitioned to a paleo-style way of eating, my rice cake indulgences came to an end. Rice and beans were out of the picture, at least temporarily, and refined sugar and additives, which abound in commercially-made daifuku, were off the menu forever.

I was okay with foregoing sweets. I did not miss eating them. But after reading Durian Sukegawa’s novel Sweet Bean Paste, and watching the Japanese movie adaptation, I realized that there was something else about sweets that I did sorely miss: the human connections that are fostered by the making, the giving and the sharing of sweets. It sounds saccharine, and rightly so, but it is a process that conveys warmth, care and love in each and every step, from the sensuality of the manual labour to the act of giving itself. It is in its smallness that it finds magnanimity, a gesture as precious as it is prosaic, and perhaps all the more so because of its banality. Take this treat, we seem to say, without words, when we hand someone a homemade confection. The care I took to make it beautiful, the sweetness you will feel on your taste buds… is but a paltry symbol of the beauty of being accepted into your life.

Watch this trailer for Sweet Bean — it will make you smile. It may also make you hungry (if you aren’t already)

In case you were wondering, I did keep a few daifuku for myself, happily giving away the rest to friends and family members. I will keep doing the same. There is always sweetness to be shared.

近道大福 — Shortcut Daifuku

There are two parts to this recipe. In the first, we pressure cook the adzuki beans in an Instant Pot and sweeten them with date paste and honey to make tsubuan (粒餡), coarse red bean paste. You can adjust the amount of sweeteners to your taste and/or dietary needs. Adding shio koji is optional but does wonders to enhance the sweetness of the paste. Depending on how many daifuku you wish to make (my recipe yields only 8, but is easily scalable), you might end up with more bean paste than you need, but you can easily freeze the leftovers for use in a future confectionery project!

Tsubuan (粒餡) – coarse red bean paste

In the second part, we make glutinous rice dough by mixing glutinous rice flour, water and a tad of honey and cooking it in the microwave until it becomes sticky and translucent. We roll out our dough, cut it into pieces and envelop them around balls of bean paste.

Ready to be filled

Ready to be wrapped

Ready to be gifted

Joëlle

Instant Pot Red Bean Paste (餡子)

Delicious homemade red bean paste to use as a filling in a variety of Asian desserts, made easy with the Instant Pot! This version is refined sugar-free, sweetened instead with dates and honey.

Save Recipe

Print Recipe

Ingredients

300g adzuki beans
5 cups water
150g dates
1-2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp shio koji

Instructions

Soak dates in warm water for 1 to 2 hours. Blend them in a food processor or blender with a few tablespoons of the soaking water until you have a paste. Set aside.
Place beans in a large bowl and wash them with cold water until the water runs clear. Discard any floating beans. Drain the water, and add the beans to the Instant Pot liner.
Cook for 25 minutes on high pressure, and let the pressure release naturally.
Remove the lid from the Instant Pot. If there is any foam on the surface, scoop it up with a skimmer.
Pour the contents of the Instant Pot liner through a fine sieve to drain the cooking water, and put the cooked beans back into the pot.
Set the Instant Pot to saute mode, on the low setting. Add the date paste, honey and shio koji, and mix until everything is well combined.
Keep cooking until the mixture has thickened enough that when you draw a line through it with your spatula, you should see the bottom of the pot for about 2 seconds.
Transfer the bean mixture to a baking tray or large flat plate to cool down and finish thickening.
Store the cooled paste in the fridge for up to a week, or in the freezer for up to a month.

Notes

Shio koji is a lacto-fermented mixture of rice koji (rice inoculated with aspergillus oryzae spore -- the basis for many well-know Japanese ferments such as miso, sake and soy sauce). It provides enzymes and probiotics while imparting the dish with a unique umami flavour. In salads and sauces, you can substitute sea salt, himalayan salt or fish sauce. Shio Koji is also an excellent meat and fish tenderizer, because of the enzymes that break down proteins. To learn more about shio koji, how to make it at home, and how to use it in the kitchen, click here.

Nutrition

Calories

1439 cal

Carbs

313 g

Protein

62 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

https://www.joellegaudet.com/2019/05/05/daifuku-with-instant-pot-red-bean-paste/