Manjū 酒まんじゅう

History and Origins

A mixture of wine seeds and flour made from rice and rice sauce, wrapped in cans, and steamed up. Since the compound was a land where volcanic ash was too much for rice crops, old wheat, barley, and other fields have been cultivated with various foods, using ground dust. Among them, the drinking area was always on the table when it came to festivals and people. There were times when it was said that "what we can make on a bottle of wine is our marriage." The best time to fertilize the fabric is when it is hot, so it is especially for the festivals held in July and August, where they were made in large quantities in each home, where they were enjoyed and distributed to relatives.

When It Is Eaten

Handmade at home today, it is not made at home, but it is sold throughout the year in candy and farmry throughout the city, and it is highly popular in the community. There's a special flavor in shops, such as making them in traditional methods or sticking to local ingredients.

How It Is Eaten

The traditional method of cooking is to use water and wine on white rice to fertilize the dough. I'm going to wrap up the beans cans with that cloth and round it up and steam it up. And there are times when you use a little bean on the materials, not a little bean on the board, but something like that. Since traditional recipes will take days before they are ready to be prepared, local food organizations are also introducing recipes that are designed to make it easier to make in the home by using baking powder and sakes. Even though traditional recipes are called "oversides," those that do not use wine are called and distinguished from those that do not use it.

Recipe

Ingredients

• Mix: 2–3 cups cooked rice
• Mix: 600 ml water
• Mix: 25 g rice koji
• Mix: 1 kg local wheat flour
• Mix: 21/2 cups soy sauce
• Mix: 4 tbsp sugar
• Azuki bean paste: 2 cups azuki beans
• Azuki bean paste: 350 g sugar
• Azuki bean paste: 1 tsp salt

Method

1. I put the ingredients of the seeds in a cup of coffee, and mix them up well and let them produce.
2. If the rice doesn't float, I squeeze it. The summer season will start in about two days, and winter will take 5 days.
3. I add sugar and soup to the ground ground ground ground powder, and then add them to the softness of the ears and put them to sleep. This summer is about four hours, and winter is about twice as large if left overnight. If you put sugar in the flour, it won't make the fabric hard.
4. I gently remove the dough twice a gas, and I will do even better.
5. One bottle at a time, it will tear apart and shape it smoothly.
6. (The center of the fabric is thick and thin outside.)
7. I'll put the bottle I've made around the center of the skin and wrap it in leather. Finally, the skin is held tightly on the fingertip so that it doesn't open its mouth. I'll be able to sleep for half an hour until I press my finger from top to back.
8. Put it in a steamer and steam it for 20 minutes. Watch out for the fabric breaking when it is steamed.
9. Take it down from the fire and bring it out by the side.

More About Manjū

Manjū (饅頭; まんじゅう) is a traditional Japanese confection, usually a small, dense bun with a sweet filling. They come in many shapes and varieties.

The standard manjū has a skin made of flour, and is filled with anko (sweet azuki bean paste). Some varieties use kudzu starch or buckwheat flour for the skin. Other types of filling include sweet potato, chestnut jam, or custard.

Manjū is usually steamed or baked, though fried manjū can be found in some modern restaurants. Traditional manjū are usually round, but many different shapes exist today, and some are proprietary to specific bakeries.

History

Manju is a traditional Japanese flour-based pastry (instead of rice-based like mochi). During the Kamakura period (1185–1333), Japanese Buddhist monks who studied in the Song dynasty brought the tea culture to Japan, and the custom of eating confections with tea began in Japan. The monks also introduced tenshin (点心, dim sum), a light meal, and the history book Teikun ōrai (庭訓往来) (c. 1394–1428) mentions udon, manjū, and yōkan as types of dim sum.

There are two major claims regarding who may have introduced the manjū from China (called mantou in Chinese, also written 饅頭). One claim is that when the Zen priest Enni returned from China in 1241, he introduced manjū production techniques during his stay in Hakata, Fukuoka Prefecture, revealing the recipe to a teahouse owner named Kurinami Kichiemon (栗波吉右衛門). As the story goes, Enni founded Jōten-ji, a temple of the Rinzai sect in Hakata, and while making his takuhatsu (begging rounds), he became acquainted with this generous shopkeeper near Mount Aratsu, west of Hakata. Kichiemon's shop name (yagō) was Toraya, and it is further claimed that the teahouse shop owner received from the priest Enni a hand-written signboard with the words "Omanjū Dokoro" ("Place to Eat Manjū"), which has been handed down and is now in possession of Toraya Confectionery at its main branch in Akasaka, Tokyo. There is also a stone monument in the garden of Jōten-ji temple that commemorates the introduction of manjū to Japan.

The other claim credits the introduction to Rin Jōin (Lin Jingyin, 林浄因), a Chinese native who came to Japan in 1341 as an attendant of Ryūsan Tokuken. More specifically, this is the root origin of the so-called Shiose manjū, Shiose being the surname adopted by Lin and his descendants, which also became the name of the manjū shop founded by this family originally in Nara, and later in Kyoto and Edo.

The recipes of the two claims are different. The Hakata manjū calls for a sake-starter (i.e. kōji mold culture) as leavening agent, while the original Shiose recipe was based on a yeast starter of fermented dough called lao mien (老麺) kneaded into the final dough, and the manjū skin is then wrapped around an adzuki bean paste. Even the original version was sweetened with amazura (vine sap) with a hint of salt, according to a book authored by the head of the Shiose proprietorship, though at least one scholar assumes the original must have been salt flavored (unsweetened). The standard explanation is that the Chinese version at the time typically used meat fillings, which the ascetic (Zen) monk could not use for their tea services, so that it necessarily got converted to a vegetarian version using beans.

The Sōgo ōzōshi (宗五大草紙) (1528) illustrates in simple line drawing that 3 pieces of manjū were served in each bowl, and placed on a tray alongside chopsticks, bowl of soup, and pickles. The etiquette for eating the manjū was to split one piece, and eating one half while placing the remaining half alongside the other manjū in the bowl, although if preferred (or if a mature adult person is eating), one may eat the whole manjū in a single bite. Also, the manjū are to be served in a rice bowl but covered by a soup bowl lid on top.

Another late Muromachi period source, the Shokunin utaai ehon (職人歌合画本) writes that sweetened sugar manjū and vegetable manjū both need to be steamed thoroughly.

Mantō vs. chūka manjū

In current Japanese parlance, 饅頭 is usually read "manjū" meaning a confection (sweets) with fillings, but it can also be read as "mantō" to mean the Chinese steamed bread mantou without any fillings; these mantou are consumed as staple food rather than as sweets.

Also, while manjū is generally taken to mean a type of sweets, the savory snack nikuman (short for "meat bun") is an exception. The nikuman is the equivalent to Chinese baozi (or just bao), though the nikuman is usually not sweet, while the Chinese-style baozi may have savory or sweet fillings (char siu bao being rather sweet). The nikuman is also called chūkaman (short for chūka manjū, lit. 'Chinese bun'), though to be more precise, the sweet type filled with bean paste called anman, (as well as the newly invented pizza-man) are considered to be types of chūka manjū also. These chūka manjū are part of standard fare offered at convenience store chains.

Varieties

Myriad varieties of manjū exist, some more common than others.

Varieties of skin

The most common type of manjū uses wheat flour-based skin or crust, which are steamed and thus called mushi manjū. However, if the flour-based dough uses sakadane (sake starter, i.e. kōji mold) as leavening agent, the steamed manjū is referred to as Sake Manjū(saka manjū (酒饅頭)). There is also a type called the jōyo manjū (薯蕷饅頭) which uses dough combined with grated yamaimo (general term for yam or Dioscorea spp.). It is tsukune imo (fist-shaped/globular cultivar of Chinese yam rather than the long type) that is typically used, with the purpose of making the dough rise fluffier.

The oni manjū (lit. 'ogre dumpling') has diced blocks of sweet potato sticking out of its steamed skin, and has no fillings. This was simple fare that gained momentum during the food shortages of World War II and the postwar. Some claim this manjū already existed prior to wartime, but the exact origins are uncertain. It is billed as a specialty sweets of Nagoya and surrounding areas of Aichi Prefecture, The name supposedly comes from the protruding corners of the sweet potato being reminiscent of the horns of the Japanese ogre or oni, or the studded metal clubs (kanabō) that the oni carry.

Matcha (green tea) manjū is one of the most common variation on the basic crust, in this case, the outside of the manjū has a green tea flavor and is colored green.

A yaki manjū (baked or fried manjū) are not steamed like the typical manjū. There are oven-baked manjū such as the kuri manjū ("chestnut dumpling"), kasutera manjū ("Castella cake dumpling"), and tō manjū (lit. 'Tang/China dumpling').

The kuri manjū (shown right) is a representative type of yaki manjū. Traditionally an oval (koban-shaped ) manjū made by wrapping either chestnut paste or white sweet bean paste (navy bean) with pieces of chestnut in flour dough, giving it an egg wash (yolk cut with mirin), and baking so that a lustrous sheen of chestnut color appears on the top surface.

Varieties of fillings

The most common filling (an) is adzuki an (red bean paste), but sweet bean paste of other beans are also used (such as white shiro an, usually from ingen or navy beans), as well as imo an (sweet potato paste, shown right).

The adzuki red bean paste may be cruder tsubu an (aka tsubushi an), which is a "with pulp" version that still has bits of beans left in the paste, or smoother koshi an which have been strained through.

The sekihan manjū uses sekihan (red bean rice) as filling.

The banana manjū of Ikeda, Hokkaido is banana-shaped manjū that uses banana flavoring in the white bean paste filling. It began sales at the train station's opening in 1904.

A proprietor of the momiji manjū ("maple leaf" shaped manjū) of Hiroshima has come up with a seasonal variety filled with mikan orange cream.

Kuzu manjū

The specialty shops in Obama, Fukui offer kuzu manjū that are not steamed but processed by placing the hot-dissolved kuzu starch (with bean paste trapped inside) into molds, then cooling these in cold water tanks. Traditionally, the confection has been molded using largeish choko (sake cups), and chilled in water tubs fed from welling spring water. It has a gelatinous outer texture, and translucent revealing the an (bean paste) inside.

Mizu manjū ("water manjū", shown right) is a specialty item of Ōgaki, Gifu, and can be identically described as the aforementioned kuzu manjū, except that the recipe calls for an addition of warabiko ("bracken starch") into the kuzu starch mix which is supposed to help keep the product from turning watery as it is also chilled in water tanks fed by spring or river water. It also has a translucent, jelly-like appearance.

According to 1920s cook book, a kuzu manjū of a sort can be recreated at home by dissolving kuzu starch, wrapping bean paste into this skin or dough, and steaming. Nowadays, prepackaged quick mixes called Mizu manjū no moto are sold in stores, with pre-combined kudzu starch, other starches, and agar for easy preparation at home.

Regional manjū

As is the case with many Japanese foods, in some parts of Japan, one can find manjū unique to that region.

The maple leaf-shaped momiji manjū (q.v., shown right) in Hiroshima and Miyajima is fairly well-known.

The usukawa manjū (shown left) is a specialty of Kōriyama, Fukushima, made at the shop Kashiwaya founded in 1852. It is so named due to the thin skin wrapped around the sweet bean paste. It has a distinctive dark brown skin, since the dough is blended with dark brown sugar (Japanese kurozatō) and brown sugar syrup; the thin skin is then wrapped around ample amounts of koshi-an (strained red bean paste) filling. The shop also now offers a tsubu-an (unstrained paste) variety.

Kashiwaya's usukawa manjū is promoted as being one of the "3 great manjū of Japan", the others being the aforementioned Shiose manjū now based in Tokyo (shown lower left), and the Ōte manjū made by Ōte Manjū Inbeya of Okayama City. The three were named in a 1993 book compilation themed on top 3 rankers of various categories.

The Jūmangoku manjū (lit. '100,000-koku manjū'), a type of jōyo manjū (yam manjū) offered by a proprietor based in Gyōda, Saitama, has become a specialty representative of the whole Saitama Prefecture.

Although hōraku manjū (蜂楽饅頭) (shown right) bears manjū in its name, this local slang around Kumamoto Prefecture for what is otherwise known as imagawayaki in Tokyo, etc., (Thus it hardly really counts as a subtype of manjū). The hōraku manjū is described as a confection made by a proprietorship in Minamata, Kumamoto, where honey-added bean paste gets dropped inside the batter poured into hot plate molds, and fried into round shapes; the fillings may be black bean paste using adzuki or white bean paste using ōtebo (大手亡) (large-sized variety of white common bean).

In Hawaii, one can find Okinawan style manjū that are made with a filling of purple sweet potato (i.e. beni-imo or ube).

Explanatory notes

1. ^ "Lin Chingyin" in Shurtleff&Aoyagi (2021). "Lin Jing Yin" in The East.
2. ^ sakadane (酒種).
3. ^ However, one librarian view is that the original manjū brought to Japan by the monks were not sweets as we know them today, but likely to be plain without a filling.
4. ^ The yōkan is another classical Japanese confection using sweet bean paste, but this name means literally "sheep soup", and in China was originally made by congealing the mutton stew.
5. ^ Historian Shigeru Sakurai appears to introduce this as an example of sugar-sweetened manjū already in existence by this time.
6. ^ Or written out phonetically in katakana as mantō (マントウ).
7. ^ hakkō mushi pan (発酵蒸しパン; extra-lit. fermented steamed bread), according to Ishige, meaning "leavened steamed bread".
8. ^ Grated yam turns into a sort of slimy purée.
9. ^ Rather unusually, sweetened stewed nagaimo (Chinese yam) or lily bulbs have been used as an.
10. ^ Iseya (in business since 1830 offering this item) in Obama city may have been the originator of this confection.
11. ^ The "usukawa manjū" was already used as the name of one of the confections which Toraya presented to the Imperial household according to a record of 1635, so the 1852-founded Kashiwaya in Kōriyama should not be mistakenly credited for devising this name.
12. ^ Kase, co-author of the 1993 book revealed that he chose the 3 top manjū proprietors by a survey vote, compiling the results of questionnaires sent to well-known manjū across the country. This revelation was made by Kase when he lectured at the "3-dai manjū summit (13 October 2017).
13. ^ Jūmangoku Fukusaya (十万石ふくさや).
14. ^ The original merchandise means "100,000-koku" where koku is a dry measure, about 5 bushels. The actual reference is to the 100,000 koku per annum kokudaka (rice production) of the Oshi Domain, which had ruled Gyōda.
15. ^ The print artist Shikō Munakata had said "Umai, umasugiru (delicious, too delicious)" concerning the product and this became the catchphrase. Munakata certainly endorsed the product, since the leaflet or brochure in the box set bears Munakata's calligraphy and name stamp (cf. photo).
16. ^ Called Minamata Hōraku Manjū.
17. ^ The term kiji does not distinguish between dough and batter, but one of the sources shows a photograph of the batter in bucket with ladle, and verbally describes the batter as being "drained" into the hot plate cups.
18. ^ This, or very similar, type of manjū is also being sold at a street stall in Jōtenji-dōri in Fukuoka, just meters away from the manjū monument on the grounds of Jōten-ji temple, that commemorates manjū being brought from China by monk Enni.

Text adapted from the English Wikipedia article Manjū by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Dish data: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), “Uchi no Kyodo Ryori” (Our Regional Cuisines) database, used under the Public Data License (PDL1.0); translated and adapted from the Japanese original.