Neri Yōkan

This one may be a little odd for the people who’ve never tasted Japanese sweets. Personally I love them, as the traditional Japanese wagashi are much less sweet than what you’d get in the West, so they tend to leave you more satisfied without that endless I-need-another craving you get after the first taste of dessert.

This wagashi is called Neri Yokan, which is a form of jellied An (red azuki bean paste). So you will need some Koshi An - I have added the recipe here in case you want to make it from scratch.

Koshi An

Ingredients

500g Azuki Beans
550g Sugar
1,6L Water
Pinch of Salt

Pressure Cooker

Wash the beans until the water is clear. Put them into the pressure cooker with the water and cook for 25 minutes after it has reached full pressure. Then drain the beans well (stir them a little - more water will be released!) and put them back into the pan. Add the sugar and salt and stir until incorporated. Then put the mixture into a metal sieve. Place a bowl under the sieve and mash the beans through the sieve until you get about 600g Koshi An.

Neri Yokan

Ingredients

600g Koshi An
100ml water
8g Agar Agar
50-100g Granulated Sugar

Rectangular Cake Tin

Bring the water to a boil and whisk in the Agar until completely dissolved. Then lower the fire, add the An and sugar to taste and stir to combine.

Cook the mixture until it stiffens up a little and you can see the bottom of the pan for some seconds when you scrape it with a wooden spoon, like with any reduction sauce. This took me about half an hour but it depends on how much liquid your An has.

Then pour the mixture into a cake tin and let it cool to room temperature before placing it in the fridge for roughly two hours.

Serve chilled with matcha, sliced in small rectangles the size of three little bites.