Oshiruko (Red bean soup with mochi)
Oshiruko (おしるこ、お汁粉) is a sweet red bean soup with mochi or shiratama dumplings in it. This is one of the traditional soup sweets in Japan. A dish similar to oshiruko is called zenzai (ぜんざい). In the Kanto region, zenzai is rice cake poured with red bean paste. You can taste this hidden sweets at traditional Japanese sweets shop called Kanmi-dokoro (甘味処). If you order oshiruko at a shop, you may find it comes with oshinko (お新香). The salty oshinko enhances the sweetness of oshiruko.
In this recipe, you will see two types of Oshiruko; one with the block type pre-made mochi and the one with shiratama dumplings made of glutinous rice flour.
Ingredients (2 servings):
1 block Mochi *premade
30g Shiratamako *glutinous rice powder
30g Water
200g Red bean paste
200ml Water
Option:
Pinch of Salt
Directions:
1. Grill the premade mochi until it becomes brown color.
2. Knead the Shiratamako and water in a mixing bowl until the dough is as soft as an earlobe.
*The more you knead it, the softer the dumplings become.
3. Shape the dough into a ball. Divide it into 4 pieces.
4. In a pot, bring water to a boil. Add all the dumplings to boiling water.
Once the dumplings start floating on top of water, continue boiling them for another 3 minutes.
5. Place dumplings in iced water and let them cool.
6. Put red bean paste and water in another pot. Slowly stir and heat them with low heat until red bean paste becomes smooth.
7. Place mochi in a bow and pour the red bean paste soup over the mochi.
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Note:
This recipe was first submitted in Apr 1st, 2020 and resubmitted in Jan 30th, 2024 to reflect recipe revisions and additional photos.