(speaking foreign language) - [Alvin] Hello! Welcome
back to another episode of Anime with Alvin. We are gonna be recreating
the mitarashi dango from one of my favorite
anime, Demon Slayer. This is dangoko, a
pre-made mix of rice flours used to make dango, but we are
gonna make ours from scratch. But before we get to that,
the first thing we have to do is soak some bamboo skewers in water. The reason for doing
so will be shown later. All right, onto the dango. We're gonna be balancing two
different kinds of rice flour. The first one is called joshinko. It adds a nice chewy and
bouncy texture to the dango. The second one is called shiratamako, which you might have seen from
our Jujutsu Kaizen episode, where we made mochi. This flour adds a smoother, fresher, tender texture to the dango. And because this is my
first time making dango, I've referenced two recipes for the version I'm showing you today. One is from Miss Wagashi, and the other is from Leo's Japanese Dojo. Both of them have wonderful
Japanese recipes on YouTube, so please check them out. So once both rice flours
are mixed together, I'm slowly streaming in water
while mixing simultaneously with some chopsticks. The goal is to mix the water
and the flour together evenly and slowly without any
huge lumps or clumps. Once the flour has been
sufficiently hydrated, I go in directly with my
hands, kneading this into a smooth ball and rolling
it out into one long even... Snake? Followed by using a bench scraper to cut these into evenly-sized dumplings. Kind of like gnocci. Now, after probably one of
the most satisfying shots I've ever seen, I'm gonna
roll each of these dumplings into a smooth ball. As a Chinese person, this
is quite similar to making something called tangyuan,
but we'll save that episode for another day. And after these balls have
been delicately placed onto a plate, I'm wrapping
them up, setting them aside, and trying out a really
interesting version I saw from Miss Wagashi's video. So this version still begins
with the same joshinko rice flour, but instead of
the shiratamako and water, we're going to substitute in silken tofu, which I believe accomplishes two things. Shiratamako might not be
the easiest thing to find, and silken tofu is more readily
available for the home cook. And not only does the silken tofu provide the liquid content, it also should act as a tenderness substitute
for the shiratamako. But the process is the
same, kneading them together until they form a smooth dough ball, rolling it out until it becomes
a long smooth rice snake, and finally cutting them
up and rolling them up into beautiful small rice dumplings. And while these go off
to the side to hang out with their non-tofu brethren, we are gonna make the mitarashi sauce. This is gonna be the glaze
that goes on top of our dango. It's a pretty simple
sweet and savory sauce made from mirin, soy sauce,
water, and after the liquids are combined in a medium
saucepan over medium heat, I'm adding in the dry ingredients, first mixing the potato starch
and sugar to avoid any lumps when it hits the liquids
and constantly stirring as the syrup thickens. If it gets too thick, I
add a little bit of water, but the end result should be a beautiful honey-like consistency. And this is gonna go
off to the side to cool while we cook our dumplings. Now, into a big pot of boiling water, I'm dropping in the dumplings one by one. For efficiency's sake, I'm
throwing in both kinds, but the key here is just to make sure that they don't stick to the bottom. So a little shake, a
little stir, and these cook for about three to five minutes,
until they start to float. Once they float, these go for
another two to three minutes, and then these come straight
out of the hot water and into an ice bath, both
to stop the cooking process and to shock them into a
chewier, bouncier texture. Once the dumplings are cool,
they come out onto a tray lined with parchment paper
to dry for a little bit, and it's very important
that these are separated into two different
battalions with even ranks of perfectly lined up
soldiers, ready for war. This is because it looks nice. If any of the dumplings break rank, it is important to eat
them to send a message. Now that order has been maintained, it's time to skewer these onto the bamboo skewers from earlier. This can range anywhere between
in three and five dumplings per skewer, but in the show they do four, so I am also doing four. And both for appearance
and safety reasons, I like to make sure that
the final dumpling on top is only skewered about 75% through. Now, this is where things
get kind of interesting. I mentioned to Andrew that
dango are often grilled on a Japanese-style
grill with some charcoal, and he mentioned that he happened
to have something similar, as well as some charcoal. This is binchotan. It is a highly prized and
expensive type of charcoal because of the way it burns cleanly and silently without smoke. It is often used in restaurants
to impart really nice flavors to whatever ever is
being grilled, usually meat. We have never really
used it professionally, so what you see here is two amateurs trying to figure out the best
way to make this work at home. After a lot of YouTube
video-watching article-reading trial and error, we managed
to heat the charcoal somewhat before putting it inside the grill, where, once again, the
ball is back in my court to see if I can do something with this. We definitely didn't do
this the correct way. The charcoal didn't
seem to get hot enough, and rather than getting
a nice crispy outside, the dango kind of started to melt instead. So we improvised by taking
the grill rack upstairs and onto the stove so that
the dango could be cooked directly over an open flame. This dango can also be
grilled in a non-sick pan, but I'd love to know
how we could have done the charcoal part better,
so please leave a comment. But after two hours of
perseverance from both Andrew and Jess, we're finally able
to glaze our crispy dango. And the glaze had
definitely cooled by then, so after warming it up on
the stove for a little bit, I'm slowly spooning this
honey-like substance over each skewer of dango,
and this is the payoff. Watching that beautiful
golden glaze just slowly melt over that smooth whiteness
of the dumplings... It's amazing. I can totally see why
someone would fall in love with this snack and just
want to eat it all the time. So after a lot more effort
than usually required, this is my version of the
mitarashi dango from Demon Slayer. A little quick inspection before we go for the quality check. This is amazing. You have the sweet, salty glaze with the crispy but chewy soft dango. It's amazing. I love this. But we also need to try the tofu version. Huh. So the one made with
tofu instead of shiratamako is actually a little more firm and bouncy than the one from before. Personally, I prefer the one
made with the shiratamako, but if it's not something
you can find at home, I think the tofu version
works extremely well. But if you'll excuse me, I'm
gonna take both of these plates and slowly snack on them as I watch that crazy finale episode one more time. (smooth music)
