How to make OSHIRUKO/ZENZAI (Japanese sweet red bean soup) 〜お汁粉/ぜんざい〜 | easy Japanese home cooking

Welcome to Taiji's Kitchen. Today I'm going to show you how to make oshiruko. So oshiruko, or it's also sometimes called zenzai, the name kind of varies where you live in Japan. So what it is is sweetened soup of anko, or like a red bean paste, often a topping of mochi dough or like a dango dough. Sometimes they have a variation of cooked chestnuts, but mostly with mochi dough. So in this video I'll be making oshiruko with pre-made anko. You can buy most Asian supermarket anko in a can or like a package, but if you want to make anko from scratch, from azuki beans, then you can watch my other video on that. This is very very easy if you have anko, and today I'll be making two variations of this, one with tsubuan and the other with koshian, and with different topping, one with grilled dried mochi dough and the other with shiratama dango. And this is very easy if you have anko available, so I hope you give this a try. Then let's get started. Here are the ingredients for making oshiruko or zenzai. So here I have pre-made anko, here I have tsubuan, here I have koshian. You can make oshiruko with either type of anko, or you can of course buy like pre-made can or packaged anko in your local Asian store. And for the topping I'll be making similar to dango with two types of rice flour, glutinous rice flour and regular rice flour, but also another common ingredient for oshiruko is mochi. So this is what we call mochi in Japan, not these daifuku mochi, which is probably well known outside of Japan as mochi. For those who don't know, this probably looks like a bar soap, but this is a mochi rice pounded and when it's cooled down it's in this solid form. And we're going to grill this in an oven later. Nowadays mochi is sold in Japan primarily in this form. This might be a little bit difficult for you to find, but if you go to like a very large Asian supermarket or Japanese supermarket, or you can also perhaps find them in online. Then let's start cooking. Let's first make the first variation of the topping, shiratama dango. So for that one tablespoon of mochiko or glutinous rice flour, and to that regular rice flour, and to this we're going to add a little bit more than one tablespoon of water, depending on temperature and humidity. So in the summer you might need a little less water, in the winter you may need more water. So it'll be a little bit different every time, so you just kind of have to try every time. I'm first going to put one tablespoon and give this a little mix. So this is kind of breaking off a little bit too easily, so I need to add just a little bit water, not too much. So I'm just going to add probably like half a teaspoon or so, a little bit more. Because this is the day you want for making dango, is the same consistency as your earlobe. So go touch your earlobe and see if it's about the same consistency, then this is good. Now I'm just going to make a couple bowls. So what you want is you want to kind of make a little small flat circle like this, so that it'll be cooked fast. And then here I'm going to turn the heat to high and bring this to boil. And now once this has come to boil, I'm going to put in the dango balls. And we're going to cook this like this until the dango will be cooked thoroughly. So after a couple minutes or so, dango will start floating like this on the surface completely. Then these are finished. I'm going to turn the heat off and put this in a cold water. Then this is finished for making the dango balls. Now we're going to prepare the other topping of mochi. So like I said, in Japan nowadays come mochi in these kind of package. Usually these are kind of this size. This is a little bit too big, so I'm going to cut in half. It's quite hard, so be careful cutting them. Then we're going to grill this in oven. So look at this. So this is perfectly grilled. Then here we have perfectly grilled mochi. Finally, let's make the zenzai with two types of anko. So first I'm going to make it with tsubuan. It's about 100 grams. And to that I'm going to put in exactly the same amount of water, which is 100 grams or 100 milliliters. And then just kind of mix it like this. Then I'm going to turn the heat to medium. And then just bring this to boil slowly. So make sure you keep mixing while you're heating. Otherwise, the bottom will start burning. Once this has come to boil, I'm going to turn the heat off and put this to the side. Now let's make zenzai exactly the same way using koshian. So I have here again 100 grams of koshian. And then here 100 grams or 100 milliliters of water. Then again, I'm going to turn the heat to medium. Again, make sure you keep mixing this. So once this has also come to boil, I'm going to turn it off. And then let's put these on a plate. So for the shiratama dango, I'll be using a zenzai with tsubuan. And for the roasted mochi, I'll be using zenzai with koshian. Then this is finished from making two types of zenzai. Oh, it smells so great. Let's eat. Then let's start with zenzai with shiratama dango. Oh, this is so good. So please excuse me for slurping. In Japan, we do eat this anko soup with chopstick. And therefore, there's no other way to eat this other than to slurp. So please forgive me for that. And then let's have koshian zenzai with mochi. Oh, this is such a great flavor. Oh, this is so great. Warms you up from inside. And like I said, I personally like koshian because I think it has more elegant flavor to it. But nonetheless, they're both very good. So you may be wondering what I have here. These are pickled napa cabbage, or in Japanese called tsukemono. It is quite common to eat zenzai or oshiruko with these kind of pickles. Because zenzai is sweet, and we need something salty to compensate for that. And therefore, we eat often these kind of salty pickles with zenzai. So this saltiness kind of washes out your palate. Then you're ready to enjoy more zenzai. Oh, so tasty. Oh, that was so delicious. Oh, that was totally delicious. So as you saw, making zenzai or oshiruko is quite easy once you have anko available. And this is something we eat often in the winter, especially in the New Year's. Hopefully, you may try this. So having this topping of dango or mochi is not crucial. So you could try without them. Or you can make an alternative of dango using just regular cooked rice and starch, which I showed in the other video of making dango. So please check that out as well. And if you like what you saw, please hit that like button. And if you have any questions, requests, or any critiques, please feel free to write anything in the comments below. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you in the next video. Bye.