I saw these freshly-made ohagi in Isetan, and had to try them! And well, in the process of doing so, discovered some amazing association I would never have imagined, but which actually makes logical sense, as I'll explain later.
Ohagi are Japanese glutinous rice balls. Usually, they're eaten in the autumn... although I think it's closer to winter now. (But well, in Singapore, I guess it doesn't matter.) These had a red bean filling inside. But what I liked about and found interesting about it wasn't the ohagi itself, but the powder.
The green one is coated in matcha powder, the beige one in a savoury kinako powder (Japanese soy bean powder), and the one on the far end, mostly out of the picture, was just black and white sesame seeds. We got all three.
The powdered ones came amply coated with powder.
Ohagi are Japanese glutinous rice balls. Usually, they're eaten in the autumn... although I think it's closer to winter now. (But well, in Singapore, I guess it doesn't matter.) These had a red bean filling inside. But what I liked about and found interesting about it wasn't the ohagi itself, but the powder.
The green one is coated in matcha powder, the beige one in a savoury kinako powder (Japanese soy bean powder), and the one on the far end, mostly out of the picture, was just black and white sesame seeds. We got all three.
I have no picture of them up close, because I just wanted to make one main point - after devouring the two powdered ones, I mixed the powders up and just ate the resulting mixture plain, and to my huge surprise, discovered that it tasted like green PEA powder. Like those dried green peas (sometimes coated with wasabi powder), green pea crackers, or green pea paste in powder form.
Now how on earth would green tea + soybean flavours taste like green peas? On hindsight, it makes sense - the green pea taste probably comes from two sources: 1) chlorophyll and 2) bean protein.
In this case, the green tea probably provided the chlorophyll flavour, and, obviously, the kinako powder provided the bean protein flavour!
Well, that's my theory at least.
Now how on earth would green tea + soybean flavours taste like green peas? On hindsight, it makes sense - the green pea taste probably comes from two sources: 1) chlorophyll and 2) bean protein.
In this case, the green tea probably provided the chlorophyll flavour, and, obviously, the kinako powder provided the bean protein flavour!
Well, that's my theory at least.
~~~
Ok, main point made, just a comment that the kinako powder was particularly nice. I'd tasted kinako powder before, but this version was exceptionally savoury... which was a very nice complement to the sweet red bean filling.
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