Renkon balls レンコンまんじゅう

This dish is the result of an unexpected “silver lining” derived from the Covid epidemic. Because of Covid, we decided as a safety precaution, not to go to the grocery store but rather have groceries delivered. This forced us out of our usual routines and by necessity introduced us to new options. One of which was buying groceries from HMart Korean grocery store via the Instacart. As a benefit, we are now getting items which were not available from our usual grocery stores. One such item is fresh “reckon” 蓮根 or lotus root. (It is the floating stalk, not the root of a water lily). Even at our Japanese grocery store, the only reckon we could get was cleaned, boiled and sold in a package. It is easier to use than fresh renkon but it limits the dishes that can be made from it. For example, I could not have made this renkon ball or dumpling  dish レンコンまんじゅう shown below from packaged prepared renkon. But with fresh renkon available I could. I served the dumplings in a very gentle broth, with garnishes of edamame 枝豆, and simply fried reckon slices.

Reckon is an interesting vegetable. Even after cooking, it remains crunchy but grated and made into dumplings, the consistency changes completely into the consistency of “mochi-mochi” もちもち or like-fresh rice cake. I added shrimp and edamame to the dumpling. As a garnish I added simply fried renkon  which gave a nice contrasting  crunchy texture.

The other evening, I served three renkon dishes. From the left, Nitsuke 煮付け, the center is this renkon ball or dumpling dish but I added one fish ball made from blue fish, the right is renkon salad れんこんサラダ. 

In this nitsuke dish, renkon remains crunchy.

Boiled  renkon (again remains crunchy), blanched broccoli and skinned Campari tomato dressed in Yuzu mayonnaise. Since we used up the store bought Yuzu mayonnaise, I made my version by mixing Hellman’s mayo, yuzu juice (from the bottle) and a pinch of sugar . This really emulated the commercial Yuzu mayonnaise we got earlier.

Instructions for the renkon balls

Ingredients:
One segment of fresh renkon (#1) (after grated, #4, it was slightly more than 700grams)
2 tbs potato starch
3 large shrimp, thawed, shell removed and cut into small chunks then salted
10-15 shelled edamame

For broth
1 cup kelp and bonito broth (I used a dashi pack)
1 tbs of white dashi “shirt-dashi” 白だし seasoning or 1tbs each mirin and light colored soy sauce (or to taste).

Directions:
One segment of fresh renkon (#1).
Remove the ends of the segment of renkon and peel the skin (#2 and #3)
Finely grate the renkon and drain to remove excess moisture (#4)
Mix in the corn starch, shrimp and edamame. Make small balls about one inch in diameter.
Deep fry at 300-320 F for 7-10 minutes (#5)

I also fried sliced and quartered renkon
Drain (#6)

Assembly:
I cut one renkon ball in half and placed the halves in a bowl. I added the fried renkon and edamame and poured in the hot broth. You can also reheat everything in the broth and serve.

This is a very good dish. The contrast of elastic texture of the renkon balls and crunchy fried renkon is wonderful. The shrimp has similar texture to the renkon ball and since it was salted, it imparts briny salty burst of flavors. I made the broth very gentle and light which also went well.