#165 Ohagi

Watch today's show at YouTube.

sunday kitchen
#23 Ohagi

I love Japanese sweets. I usually buy them from the supermarket. But I thought I’d try making some.

I decided on ohagi because it seemed like it would be the easiest.

Ohagi is basically rice, covered with beans and sugar.
The rice inside is sticky – about halfway between onigiri and mochi.
I followed a recipe which I found on the net.

First I washed the beans.
Then I put them in a pot with some water.
And I turned on the gas.
When it started boiling I tipped out the water and put fresh water in the pot and did the same thing.
I did this three times.
Then I boiled the beans over a low heat until they were soft.

Then added sugar, a bit of salt and then I crushed the beans with this rice spoon ... until they became anko.

As for the rice. I used 80 percent mochi rice and 20 percent regular rice.
Mochi rice is sticker than regular rice.
When the rice was cooked I crushed it with a rice spoon, then made it into balls.

I used plastic wrap to attach the anko to the outside of the rice.

It was trial and error so the shapes and sizes were irregular.
But they didn’t look too bad for a first attempt.

Notes

Music on the show is used with permission from Jamendo.

Artist: David Schombert
Album: Quiet Life vol.2
Track: Small Boat
site
music at jamendo

Artist: Activ-System
Album: Babylon
Track: Babylon
site
music at jamendo

Show 164 Saturday 14 October

Watch today's show at YouTube.

Sarah’s Dairy

#13 Melbourne

In May 2004 I went to Melbourne to go to a wedding. I’d been to Australia once before, but it was the first time that I’d been to Melbourne.
The people who were getting married are both from New Zealand, but they moved to Australia.

They got married here. And got the cake here.

I stayed in Melbourne for about 5 days. Apart from the wedding – I spent some time walking around the city.

One of the first things that I noticed was that there was a lot of brick buildings. My friend told me that people build brick houses because of termites. I don’t know if this is true or not.

After living in Tokyo for several years, I kept comparing everything in Melbourne to Tokyo.

These photos are from the “oooh it’s not like this in Tokyo” file:
Tables on the footpath.
Rubbish bin with only one section.
Different train manner rules.
Graffiti and rubbish on the train.
Strong anti-smoking message on the cigarette machine.

I also saw a “milk bar” for the first time in my life. A milk bar is what we call a dairy in New Zealand.

And I saw a lot of Japanese restaurants.

I liked this place – Federation Square. And I liked these sculptures.

I thought this sign that I saw in a café was interesting: “Management reserves the right to not serve customers who are using mobile phones while ordering. Especially during busy periods. Thank you.”
Wow, they must have some pretty rude customers.

And this sign made me smile too: Where is platform 14?

Notes

Music on the show used with permission from Jamendo.

Artist: Saelynh
Album: Sensation electronique
Tracks: Lennie au pays des merveilles
Look the past, look the future
site
music at jamendo