likebyregina The next item on the list that I have been wanting to make is dango, which is a sweet rice dumpling made with mochiko. I am not making any regular dango, but Shiba Inu Dango with face and its cute butt. You need only two ingredients to make the dough, and another two to make the syrup. Once the dough is formed, you can use your creativity and imagination to create any shapes.
Since I wasn’t able to do any grocery shopping, I am using what I can find in the kitchen to make the dango. The traditional way is to use shiratama flour, which can be found in T&T Supermarket or Japanese grocery stores. Compared to the glutinous rice flour, it creates smoother, more elastic dough. Meanwhile, glutinous rice flour creates a chewy and sticky texture. However, it is still a great, inexpensive substitute.
It can get tricky if the dough is dry. It may be hard to get the small eyebrows or curly tail into shape. If you find the dough too hard to work with, I recommend adding a little more tofu to the dough. Cover unused dough with a wet towel can also reduce the speed of drying the dough. As I said before, it doesn’t have to be the face of shiba. You can make them into pigs, cats, or even pandas.
Shiba Inu Face and Butt Dango
Ingredients
- 95 g shiratama flour or glutinous rice flour
- 110 g soft tofu
Syrup
- 30 g brown sugar
- 80 mL water
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 1 tbsp water
Instructions
- Combine the flour and soft tofu. Knead into a dough.
- Separate the dough into balls of 20g each. Roll them into balls.
- Use the remaining of the dough to create an oval-shaped mouth, rice-shaped eyebrows, triangular ears, and a small curly tail.
- Be gentle and stick them on the big balls.
- Boil water. When the water is boiled, gently put the balls into the water. Cook for 2-3 minutes or when the balls float.
- Place them into ice water bath immediately.
- In a different saucepan, add brown sugar and water. When boiled, lower the heat to low. Add the mixture of corn starch and water to thicken the syrup.
- Continue to boil the syrup until thicken.
- Decorate the shiba dango with black sesame or cocoa powder + water. You can use it to draw eyes and nose.
- Gently brush the upper part of the dango to finish the shiba face and butt.
Reference: Mr. Chai TV
