Any of you folks ever play the Nintendo game, Okami? Last year one of my fans asked me to make a recipe based on this action puzzle platformer. And now that things are blooming without measure, I figured it would be an excellent time to release my recipe for Golden Peach Dumplings.
Click here to skip to the recipe for Okami-inspired Golden Peach Dumplings.
Okami, the Celestial Wolf
In Okami, you play as Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess. Called to save the land from the demon Orochi, she takes the form of a white wolf from legend to restore color and faith to the world. I started playing this game years ago on the Wii because of its beautiful Sumi-e style artwork, but I fell in love with its gameplay and storyline.
While your character does fight demons, she also brings life and positivity through the use of a “Celestial Brush.” The brush paints trees into existence, makes flowers bloom, harvests fruit to feed animals, and also yes, strikes at your enemies. Amaterasu gains her powers from the praise she receives from bringing light into the world. That, and a tasty selection of food items found throughout the game. Only a few snacks can max out her Astral Pouch, though, one of which is the Golden Peach.
Millions of Peaches
This “fruit with a rich and juicy smell” only appears as rewards from quests and boss battles, or from merchants who accept demon fangs as currency. Since I’ve already done poached peaches for Labyrinth, I wanted to try an application that better suits the character of this game. That’s when I also noticed that skewered kushi-dango were on Okami’s food list.
Kushi-dango are dumplings made from sweet glutinous rice flour that are then boiled or steamed into delicious chewy morsels. Since Okami rallies around nature’s beauty through creation, the idea of making peaches out of rice seemed incredibly fitting to the game. We’ll be taking this a bit further by making the mitarashi version which involves a tasty soy-based sweet sauce.
For this recipe, you’ll need shiratama or mochiko (sweet glutinous rice) flour, and joshinko or non-glutinous rice flour. You should be able to find these at H-Mart or online. Just about every recipe I’ve read on this dish involves kneading this mixture until it feels like “an earlobe.” I’ve made these things twice now, and I can say that it probably feels more like silly putty.
So as I stated, this wasn’t the first time I made this dish. My first attempt involved peach herbal tea, peach jam, and turmeric for color. It tasted like nothing more than soy sauce-coated sweet rice. That’s also why this dish is up so late. I needed to make this dish smack you in the face with peaches. That’s why on my next batch I used the tasty trifecta of peach jam, peach nectar, and peach tea drink mix.
This combination certainly did the trick. Not only did it give it the right color, but also taste that explodes of everyone’s favorite stone-fruit. Want to level up your game? Add some small Thai basil leaves to make these dumplings look like mini-peaches and blow your mind with this surprisingly delicious flavor-combination.
Sing For Your Supper!
If you plan to cook the recipe off the site, keep scrolling. However, while access to recipes on the blog will always be free, I now have printable PDF recipe cards and thematic cook-along Spotify playlists as rewards for those who choose to support the blog.
The printable recipe card and playlist for Golden Peach Dumplings will be available as a $2 donor reward on my Ko-Fi page until Tuesday, June 18th, 2019, at 8 pm EST.
-OR-
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recipe
Peach of the Rising Sun
Golden Peach Dumplings
Equipment: Stovetop, small saucepan, medium-sized pot, mixing bowl, slotted spoon, ice water, four 6″ bamboo skewers, wire whisk, spatula, and pastry brush.
Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons shiratama flour
- 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons joshinko or non-glutinous rice flour
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 3 peach tea drink mix single packets
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons mirin or sake
- 4 tablespoons peach jam
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 cup peach nectar
- 16 small Thai basil leaves (optional)
Instructions:
- Whisk the soy sauce, mirin, peach jam, cornstarch, and one peach tea mix packet in the small saucepan with 1/2 cup of peach nectar. Bring to a boil and lower the heat to simmer 5 minutes while whisking. Turn off the heat and set aside.
- Fill the pot with water and set on the stovetop to boil. Start making the dough while waiting.
- Blend the flours, ground ginger, and remaining drink mix together in the mixing bowl. Stir in the remaining peach nectar with a spatula, then knead the mixture until it is the firmness of an earlobe.
- Divide the dough into sixteenths, then roll each portion into a ball. Fill the empty mixing bowl with ice water.
- Drop eight balls into the boiling water then give a stir with the slotted spoon to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
- When the dumplings start floating on the surface of the boiling water, allow them to cook another minute before using a slotted spoon to transfer them to the ice water. Repeat steps 5 and 6 with the remaining dumplings.
- Drain the water from the mixing bowl, then thread four dumplings on each skewer.
- Paint each skewer with a generous coat of sauce, then garnish each dumpling with a Thai basil leaf. Serve.
