Mizuyôkan (水羊羮) is a more watery version of yokan,
often eaten in the summer; the literal meaning of the name is "water yokan". If you have the ingredients
on hand, rolling your own is fairly easy, so here's a recipe:
Ingredients:
- Soak agar-agar overnight, turning what looked like crinkly plastic
into what looks like the stomach lining of a space alien.
<shudder>
Discard soaking water.
- Pour water into saucepan and add agar-agar after shredding it with
your hands (fun!).
- Boil and stir until the agar-agar dissolves completely, the water
should be transparent but act odd when stirred. Add sugar and
dissolve it as well. Ensure that everything really is dissolved,
any chunks left now will return to haunt you later.
- Add bean paste and stir until the mixture comes to a boil again.
Pour out of saucepan into a bowl, let cool and keep stirring. If
any visible bits float to the surface, you were a bad boy(/girl) and
didn't stir the agar-agar well enough. Fish 'em out.
- Once the mixture has cooled enough that you can stick a finger in
and not burn, pour the mixture into jelly setting boxes, or
alternatively straight into whatever you want to serve it out of.
Slowly, air bubbles are not good...
- Stick containers into the fridge (uncovered) for a few hours.
- Once set, to remove from container press a metal spatula/knife down
along the edge to separate, then plop it down on a flat surface.
Or eat it straight out of the container, preferably with a pot of
strong green tea on the side. Yum yum!