Tastes somewhat like the real thing, but isn't. So no recipe is provided until I tweak out the problems. Trouble is, I don't understand the recipe, it's in Japanese. So I went online to the first google search result and the recipe was a poor one (I'm not going to slander it, though).
An attempt at mizuyokan, which was a failure appearances-wise. It's meant to look like a pure jelly with this reddish pulp of bean paste suspended in it. Also, its dense and chewy, not wobbly at all. Mine tasted like red bean flavoured jelly with clumps of bean paste collected at the bottom. And I threw in some of the beans for the heck of it, which was a mistake, because it made the jelly look really messy.
The principle behind these yokans is really simple- some suspension of starch in agar-agar. The proportions are difficult though, and boiling your own bean paste takes hours and hours... not to mention the labor that goes into making the fine paste mushed through various sieves. All for a tiny batch of jelly that someone can consume in about 5 minutes approx (timed, eaten by a housemate). So depressing!
I think I'm mostly depressed because it looks so different from the sophisticated, even courtly version that you can see in those tiny Kyoto shops. There, they suspend little bits of sweetened red beans and green beans like jewels in the yokan. I'm cooking not dessert here, but a kind of subtle experience- which I fell dreadfully short of. So there. It was a failure, though an edible one. I will try again, but probably after getting someone to help translate my cookbook properly. This comes from my unwarranted belief that Google always helps! :(
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