japanese traditional sweets, or wagashi (和菓子) are one of my favorite desserts of all time. whenever i visit japanese restaurants, i never fail to order japanese sweets like macha/goma anmitsu, parfaits, shiratama etc. and on the last day of lunar new year, called the lantern festival or yuan xiao, instead of making the usual tangyuan filled with peanut or sesame filling in a ginger soup, i decided to make something different.

my first attempt at these were disastrous though the photos looked anything but, to my relief :p this is my first time trying out the microwave method of cooking glutinous rice (i've always used the boiling method) and i find it rather tricky to handle especially the rolling-out part. i would either roll the dough too small that i didn't hv enough to cover or too big that i had too much excess dough at the bottom. but tastewise these turned out surprisingly well. i couldn't actually visualize the pairing of adzuki bean paste and strawberries initially since adzuki always goes well with macha but these were really good!

i used korean strawberries for these and to be frank, i think they're getting from bad to worse. few years ago they used to be super sweet but not anymore. in fact i was surprised to see some very green and unripe ones! however i try to go for the ones that hv got the word 'maehyang' on the carton. they're usually better tasting and slightly sweeter than the others.

recipe adapted from here.