Dango (continued)

Now On To Business

WARNING: Read through this recipe at least once before cooking!

Sadly, I cannot give you perfect amounts of how much mochiko or water to use; the amount can seriously vary if you change anything at all, and even then it depends on how chewy etc. you want your dango. My recommendation is to start with ½ as much water as mochiko, which will most likely give you more water than you need. If the dough is just too sticky that you can’t knead it properly into a single glob, add a little mochiko. Just be careful to make sure that you aren’t judging the dough based only on what is stuck you hands, as that is where the stickiest stuff will be. If you’re worried about the dough being too sticky, try cleaning your hands first then going at it again.

Get It All Ready
As with most other recipes, getting as much done ahead of time as possible is an extremely helpful practice. So get out all of your ingredients and equipment, and get ready to get to work. Get everything measured out (if you know exactly how much you want to use), but keep the ingredients out anyway if you need to add more later. Get your big pot ½-¾ full of water (or whatever liquid you are using), and get it started on its boil (just keep an eye on it to be safe). If you are going to make a sauce from scratch (as is included in many traditional dango recipes), you might want to get things ready so you can prepare your dango and sauce in parallel. Also, give your cutting board a light coating of mochiko to prevent sticking.

Being Kneady
Kneading dough is an interesting process, especially if you have never done it before. In the case of making a dough from scratch and kneading it, here are some guidelines: your ultimate goal is to get all of the moisture evenly distributed across your dry mix. Doing this is easiest with the hands by simply trying to “massage” it all together. You will find that at first, everything will get very crumply and chunky; do not lose hope! That is what is actually supposed to happen, as it is essentially the moisture remaining in little pockets of resistance against your unstoppable will, holding out until you stamp out any hope for rebellion with your iron fist. Eventually, the weaklings will break and you will have your dough. In the case of serious resistance, add just a tiny bit of water, and keep working it in. If your watery fury has proved too overwhelming for the feeble rebels, resulting in a big gooey mess, add just a little more mochiko (combined with whatever dry stock you’re using), and keep asserting your fist-power. Eventually you will have your dough, but note that this process is not instant! It takes at least 5 minutes to get the dough into a proper state (get it, state? Hehe), and naturally takes longer if you encounter problems along the way. Also refer to the first paragraph of this section (“Now On To Business”) for info on recommended ratios and a few other tips.
So, with all of this information about kneading (it is a rather needy process? Har har har…somebody stop me please…X_X), let’s begin:
1. Combine all of your dry ingredients in the large mixing bowl. You may want to stir, or even sift, them together. This just helps in creating a more uniform mixture.
2. Add the water (or substitute liquid) to the mixture. Some people prefer to add the water in small increments, but I find that it works out fine if you add it all at once, so the choice is yours.
3. Now just keep kneading the dough together using the information described above. Once your dough is combined, transfer it from the bowl to the cutting board.
4. Gently smoosh the dough flat on the cutting board.
5. Fold four “corners” of the dough up and into the center of the dough, and then squish those corners together.
6. Flip the glob over and gently smoosh it flat into the cutting board again, thus smoothing out the creases created by joining the “corners” against the flat board.
Now simply repeat the last two steps until you have a nice, fairly smooth uniform chunk of dough.

Taking a Dump(ling)
With your dough pounded into ideal submission, it’s time to form it into little dumplings. I once read a recipe that said to only divide the dough now, and then try and form the dumplings later. It also recommended a few other things, and, simply put, none of them really worked (I even ended up with a burnt dish towel, but that’s another story). So now is the time for dumpling forming!
1. Rip off a little chunk of dough, a piece maybe ¾ inch in diameter, or a the equivalent of maybe 2-3 pieces of chewing gum (it’s hard to find decent units of measure for amorphous blobs you know!)
2. Just using your hands, roll the piece into a nice little ball. Use your play-doh skills that I know you developed as a child.
3. Place your little ball on to a plastic plate.
Now just repeat these steps for the remainder of your dough, and you’ll have a plate full of ready-to-cook dumplings in a few minutes. If you really want to make sure that you get nice and even-sized dumplings, you can go with the division method of simply dividing piece after piece of dough into halves or thirds until the divided pieces are the right size.

Smoking Pot
Well, ok, technically, the pot will be steaming, as it should be boiling by now, but with two ridiculous section titles already, I can’t break the combo! Though, for the record, I do not support the action this section title is referencing, and certainly don’t recommend engaging in such activities while cooking/working with an open flame, it’s just not safe. Anyway, your liquid should be to a boil now, so let’s get to work:
NOTE: I have seen other cooking methods recommended in other recipes, but this is the only one I have had success with; I’ve tried other boiling techniques, as well as steaming, and have had results ranging from poor to absolute failure. So I recommend you stick to this method, especially if it’s your first time.
1. Gently add the dango to the boiling liquid, taking care to avoid any splashes. You may wish to simply load several dumplings into your spatula and lower them into the liquid. Keep your liquid boiling this entire time (high-heat recommended).
2. Once all of your dango is into the pot, give it a stir to make sure the dango doesn’t stick to the bottom. Be careful not to stab any dango with the side of your stirring device though; I recommend lowering it to the bottom against the wall of the pot.
3. Periodically give your dango a stir, again taking care not to stab any, while waiting for them to float to the top. At several points they may start to sort of “roll” to the top with the boil, but they won’t stay floating. You must wait for them to be truly floating on the top. While waiting for this to happen, wash your mixing bowl clean, then fill it with enough ice water to eventually be able to submerge all of your dumplings.
4. Once your dumplings have finally reached their floater-stage, give them another 1-2 minutes in the boil to finish cooking.
5. Take out a single dumpling using your strainer ladle thingy, and put into the ice water bowl.
6. Give the dumpling about 30 seconds to cool, then fish it out with your hands. Either cut the dumpling open or bite it in half to check to see that it is cooked uniformly. If you decided to boil your dumplings in something more interesting than water that could have coloration effects (like it; I used a water and pomegranate juice combo), don’t confuse the outer discoloration with a difference in cooking. What you should be looking for is a difference in texture: uncooked dango will look very white and fairly opaque, while the cooked stuff will look a little more translucent.
7. If the dumplings was properly cooked, go ahead and strain-ladle out the rest of them and give them at least a minute in the ice water. If it wasn’t cooked, give the dumplings another minute or so in the water, then strain-ladle them out and put them into the ice water for a minute. You want to try to avoid getting the hot water into the ice water, is it will neutralize its effects. You might want to add a few extra ice cubes once you put the dango in to keep the stuff cool.
8. Fish your cooled dumplings from the ice water and place them gently on to another plastic plate to let them dry a little.
Now, at this point, what you do with your dumplings is very dependent on what you decided you want to do with them. You can skewer them, coat them, sauce them, or just eat them. If you’re going for coating or saucing, I recommend skewering them to make eating them a little less messy (and be sure to skewer them first to avoid any mess). I opted to skewer mine and top them with a little raspberry sauce to complement the faint pomegranate flavor they picked up during cooking, resulting in a tart, almost fruit-snack like dango. If you need to save these for later, parchment paper and a Tupperware will do you just fine. Enjoy!