Today in the SoraKitchen we’re firing off a gigantic, super easy-to-make yokan.

Recently, we bought a “sushi bazooka.” Our specific model is made in New Zealand and cost us about 1,500 yen (US$14), but you’ve probably seen similar sushi-making gadgets online or in stores.

You open the cylinder up, insert the rice and fillings, and then fire out a thick sushi roll. At least, that’s how it works in theory. In practice, it’s pretty tricky getting all the ingredients laid out just right, and we’ve already had more than a few misfires in which the fillings all end up shoved to one side, leaving us with nothing more than a mouthful of rice many when we go to take a bite.

So we got to thinking, wouldn’t it be better to use our sushi bazooka to make something with a uniform makeup? And for that matter, why are we trying to make a healthy mix of rice and fish when we could instead be making an indulgent dessert?

And so we decided to forget about sushi and instead use the apparatus as a yokan bazooka.

For those who haven’t had the pleasure of trying it, yokan is a Japanese gelatin dessert. Like so many traditional Japanese sweets, you’ll need some an (sweet bean paste) and powdered kanten (agar), and those are actually the only ingredients we used.

The cooking part is pretty easy. To start, add water and powdered agar to a pot (the ratio should be 1.5 cups of water for every 4 grams [0.14 ounces] of agar, adjusted to the size of your sushi bazooka). Whisk the mixture and bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it cook until the agar dissolves. Add the sweet bean paste (400 grams [14.1 ounces] for the ratio of water and agar listed above). Stir with a spatula and let cook until everything has dissolved into a nice uniform mixture.

Then, while the mixture is still warm, open the sushi bazooka and pour it in!

Because yokan is a gelatin, we’re going to need to let it chill, so the next step is to close the bazooka up and stick it in the refrigerator for one hour.

Then all that’s left to do is take the bazooka back out from the fridge and fire it!

Out of the mouth of the bazooka, a dark, glistening mass began to emerge.

Slowly but surely, it extended farther and farther…

…until finally…

…our dessert was complete!

Now, while it’s going to be very tempting to just pick the giant yokan up and eat it with your hands, the dessert’s soft texture means it’s probably not going to be strong enough to support its own weight. So the smarter thing to do is to cut it into slices.

As for the flavor, our giant yokan tastes like its smaller-sized brethren: sweet with a touch of saltiness, but not heavy or cloying. It’s a light, refreshing dessert that goes particularly well with a nice cup of green tea.

The whole thing went so well that we’re now wondering if we could use our sushi/yokan bazooka to make those beautiful Japanese desserts that look like an edible block of water. That experiment is going to have to wait a while, though, since we’ve got a lot of leftovers.

Reference: Just One Cookbook
Photos ©SoraNews24
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