Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Flaky Manju and Edamame Filling



I love flaky manju! My mom makes the best manju and lucky for me I have her recipe. Last May the Food Science graduate students had a potluck at our Department Head's house. Since there are a lot of International students in the Department, the theme was "Bring a dish from your home country." I decided to make manju filled with koshi an because it's origins are from Japan (I'm part Japanese) and flaky manju is found in Hawaii (well that was my rationale).
My mainland friends actually really liked the "pastry" as they called it and said that they had never tasted anything like it before (which could be interpreted as it was icky and gross). But I hadn't been fishing for compliments or anything and they told me that on their own, so I assume it was a positive comment.
I love manju with A LOT of filling! I try to stuff in as muchi azuki beans as possible without breaking the dough! In Hawaii manju can be filled with sweet potato, lima beans, peanut butter, apples, peaches, and some other ingredients. I always thought it would be cool to make an edamame filled manju. So I created a edamame filling using condensed milk, edamame, and a smidgen of salt. The filling was pretty good on it's own, but after it was baked it lost flavor. It also was the color of slime (think Nickelodeon's Double Dare).
The edamame filling has potential, but I would add sugar or more condensed milk to the mix to improve the flavor.




13 comments:

K and S said...

love pie crust manju! we have a japanese sweet called zunda mochi here, the soy beans are ground with sugar to make a paste then round mochi balls are topped with it.

Chibog in Chief said...

oh i miss manju terribly :-)


btw, i'd love to invite you to recipe muncher :-)

genkitummy said...

kat-
zunda mochi? i'll have to look that up. it sounds great!

dhanggit-
thanks for visiting my site. i wasn't sure what recipe muncher was, so i googled it. there's so many pictures of wonderful food. :)

Liane said...

Hi, your manju looks so yummy. Can you share the recipe for the crust (or is it a secret)?

genkitummy said...

Liane,
Hi! Sure I'll share the recipe. What's an email address I can send it to?
Or if you wait a few weeks,I'll post the recipe up. I'm a tad bit tied up with school work at the moment.

Anonymous said...

Could you please email the recipe to candacenc@gmail.com?

Liane said...

Oh thanks! That would be great. lcastillo22 @ hotmail.com
I made some manju with a butternut squash/condensed milk filling--I don't think I put enough flour in the crust, though.

Kawano Designs said...

flaky manju! looks delicious! would love to get the recipe too if that would be okay?

Anonymous said...

I've been looking for a good manju cookie recipe and would love if you could send it to me also. My email address is: artaste@hotmail.com. Thanks in advance! You're blog is so much fun!

irielove said...

Would you please send me the recipe for the manju crust. I want to fill it with Okinawan sweet potato.
Thanks,
Rae

Karen said...

Hi, GenkiTummy,

Is the recipe for the flaky manju crust posted on your blog? I've searched and was unable to locate it.

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hi, Lauren,

Thanks for your mom's flaky manju recipe. I made it today. It's great because you don't have to let the dough rest or cool in the fridge. I did refrigerate the an beforehand to make it easier to wrap.

I had to "hide" half of them because I want to serve them at Christmas. Well, there is only one left on the cookie sheet - what does that tell you??

Karen

Anonymous said...

A friend refuses to share her crispy flaky manju recipe. I've been obsessing over finding a recipe for baked manju. I've tried a recipe that uses oil but didn't quite end up the same. Are you posting the recipe?