Dango 101 Prompt
Tsubaki didn’t think she could profit off of Dan’s dango lessons the way that she could Hop’s drink mixing lessons. So why did she end up taking on the dango making apprenticeship? Truthfully… it was simply because she really liked dango, and she wanted to make it herself. The best treat (at least in her opinion) deserved to be learned from a master at his craft.
“Today we’ll be learning how to make strawberry dango,” Dan started, but then noticed the crestfallen expression on Tsubaki’s face. “Something wrong?”
“Ah, it’s just that my favorite is mitarashi dango,” Tsubaki explained, “Will we be learning that one at some point?”
“Of course,” Dan nodded, “We can change the order of the lessons to begin with mitarashi dango.”
Tsubaki perked up upon hearing this, smiling. “I’d love that. I’m ready to begin.”
“Fantastic. First, we’ll need a bowl to mix our ingredients.” Dan grabbed two bowls and set one in front of Tsubaki. “We start off with rice flour and water.” He showed Tsubaki the amounts she needed to put in the bowl, which Tsubaki carefully followed. “You’ll need to mix them together until the texture feels like playdough.”
Tsubaki mixed the dough, not particularly enjoying the feel of it sticking on her hands but determined to succeed in this lesson nonetheless. “I think this feels right… what next?”
“Next we break off pieces of dough, weigh them to make sure they’re uniform and all cook the same, and roll them into balls.” Dan ripped off a piece of dough to measure it before rolling it in his palm.
Easy enough. Tsubaki did the same, though she made more mistakes measuring out and often had to remove or add dough, whereas Dan seemed to get the perfect amount each time.
“This part differs depending on the dango. But for mitarashi we’re going to boil and then grill the dango balls.” Dan explained as he moved his pan of dango balls to the pot of boiling water. Tsubaki used a pot on a different heater to do the same, then they both used pans to lightly grill the balls and skewer them.
“We’re almost done. Lastly we just have to make the sauce and pour it on the dango balls. For the sauce we just need to mix soy sauce and sugar into a glaze.” He showed her the proper measurements and Tsubaki followed suit.
When they finished the sauce and pourted them over the skewers, finally finishing the dango, Tsubaki’s eyes were practically sparkling. She wanted to eat it so badly, but she didn’t know if that would be improper behavior in front of her teacher or not.
Thankfully, she must have been pretty easy to read as she heard Dan chuckle beside her. “It’s alright, you can taste it. How else are you going to know if it tastes good or not?” As if to demonstrate, he picked up one of his own skewers and bit off the top ball.
“Yes, you’re right, thank you.” Tsubaki couldn’t hide her eagerness as she picked up and bit into her own skewer. It was the best dango she’d ever had.
