Moon gazing "Tsukimi dango" dumpling 月見団子

My wife really likes the moon (and rainbows), especially a full moon. She always looks for it in the sky. So, she immediately loved  the idea of Japanese "Tsuki-mi" 月見 moon-gazing or moon-viewing,  "Chushu-no-meigetsu" 中秋の名月 or "Juu-go-ya" 十五夜 . It refers to the full moon which falls on August 15 according to the Japanese lunar calendar and on September 24 according to the  Gregorian calendar. It is the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox which incidentally also falls on September 24 this year. This moon gazing has something to do with a harvest festival in Japan and in the west this moon is called the harvest moon.  In any case, we decided to cerebrate for the harvest moon and Juu-go-ya moon. My wife even collected "Furoshiki" 風呂敷, Japanese wrapping cloth, and "tenugui" 手ぬぐい, Japanese hand towels, with moon-gazing motifs on them. As shown by the furoshiki below, these usually include the full moon, pampas grass or "Susuki" ススキ, and rabbits gazing at the moon. Rabbits are generally associated with the moon in Japan because according to Japanese folk lore supposedly derived from a Buddhism story, a mochi-pounding rabbit lives on the moon, rather than a man. So in Japan you have bunny-in-the-moon instead of man-in-the-moon. Since the creature living on the Japanese moon pounds mochi, this may explain why the traditional food to accompany the fall moon-gazing is a round mochi ball or dumpling made of rice flour called "Tsu-ki-mi dango" 月見団子 Also because the full moon occurs on the 15th night of August "Juu-go-ya" according to the Japanese lunar calendar, the dango are presented in three layers of 9+4+2 totaling 15 commemorating the 15th night full moon. A plate of these mochi dumplings is shown next to the rabbits in the picture below. The plate of the dumplings I made is in the forefront of the picture.

The last time I made this with mashed potatoes with a center of cheese but this time, I wanted to go traditional and made dango using rice flour. With my wife's help, I used one of her collection of furoshiki as a background for the picture.

Below is a picture of the guest of honor; the moon. I took this picture several days before Juu-go-ya (September 24). It was almost full moon. On the 23rd and 24th, it was rainy and cloudy and we could not see any moon.

I made tsukimi dango a few days prior. After displaying the dango, I put the dango on skewers and warmed it up in the toaster oven and coated it with "mitarashi" sauce. This way of serving dango is called "Mitarashi dango" みたらし団子. It was good (especially the sauce) but the dango themselves were not soft or warmed through. So the next day, my wife tried microwaving the dango with the sauce. That method worked much better and the soft elastic texture came back like the ones freshly made.

I have never made this from rice flour. I looked for the recipes on line and decided on making it with rice flour and silken tofu (the alternative is using just water). This recipe variant came with the claim that the dango stays soft even cold.

At that point, I was not very familiar with different kinds of Japanese rice flours* (see footnote). Because rice contains practically no gluten and gluten-free diet is popular in US, even if you do not have gluten allergy or Celiac disease, rice flour is readily available. Actually, my wife used it in her baking and she provided me with the rice flour she had used.  This is called  "Sweet white rice" flour from Bob's Red Hill. This is made from short grain Japanese eating rice grown in California (Probably "Kokuho Rose"). The flour looked a bit coarser than what I remember but I made dango from it. After boiling the dango for a few minutes, they should have floated to the surface but they never did. Although I boiled it for almost 20 minutes, they never became soft and  not quite edible especially after they were cooled. I then learned about the different kinds of  Japanese rice flours*.  Since I did not have the time or energy to go to our Japanese grocery store to look for the appropriate rice flour, I turned to Amazon and got "Mochiko"餅粉 meaning "rice-cake flour" which is milled in California by "Koda farms"  (Japanese name!). This is  made from "mochi gome" 餅米.  Mochi-gome* is a type of  rice specifically grown for making mochi 餅 or other rice dish such as "seki-han" 赤飯 (#1 in the composite picture below).  My thinking was this flour (by name and by Japanese association) must be the better flour to make dango.

Ingredients:

for the Dumpling:
"Mochiko" rice flower 100gram
Sugar 2 tbs (30gram)
Silken tofu about 1/2 (gradually added until right consistency is attained)

for Mitarashi sauce:(all weighed since amounts are rather small).
Soy sauce 40ml (or grams)
Sugar 60 gram
Dashi broth 100ml (or grams)
Mirin 15ml (or grams)
Potato starch 15 gram

Directions:
For Dumpling:
Add the flour and sugar in a bowl (#2).
Add a small amount of the tofu (#3)  at times to the dry ingredients and mix by hand.
Add more tofu until the dough forms but is still soft (#4) (The Japanese instructions say "texture of an ear lobe).
Using a small ice cream scoop, make small balls (need to make at least 15, I made 19).
Cooking them in boiling water until they float on the surface and cook additional 3 minutes (#5).
Put cooked dango in ice cold water for few minutes and drain (#6).

*Footnote: The below are what I gleaned from the Internet. There are some conflicting information. It appears that there are three major kinds of rice flour. These are made from two different kinds of short grain rice; one is "eating rice" called "Uruchi-rice" うるち米 which contains polysaccharide amylose, another is called "mochi-gome" 餅米 which contains two kinds of polysaccharides amylase and amylopectin. Amylopectin gives a lot of sticky elastic texture when cooked. Rice cake or Mochi is made from this rice.

1. Shira-tama-ko 白玉粉
Made from milling washed uncooked mochi-rice with water, After the starch settles down, it is dried, very fine, mixed with water and then boiled. It makes a delicate soft dumpling with slippery surface which remains soft even when cooled.
2. Mochi-ko 餅粉
Made from milling  washed and dried uncooked mochi-rice, strong rice flavor and makes elastic dumpling by mixing with water and then boiled
3. Jou-shin-ko 上新粉
Made from eating "uruchi" rice, washed, dried, and milled,  mixing with hot water, steamed, and pounded to make elastic mochi like dumpling.

Tuskimi-dango is ususally made from either shira-tama-ko or mochi-ko. The red mill rice flour is similar to #3.  The way I made the dango using this flour was not proper or this flour is too coarsely milled. The ones I made from Mochi-ko, the dango was much better and close to commercial "dango" my wife and I are familiar with.