Children's Day Party menu

May 5^th is a special day and National Holiday to celebrate children in Japan. Before it became a National Holiday it was a special day for boys. Girl’s day being in March.
The festivities are still the same as they were for Boy’s Day. They include flying carp streamers (koi nobori), displaying dolls in samurai armour and making samurai helmet origami, which is one of the loveliest simple origami you can do. Also boys play mock sword fighting with iris leaves in samurai fashion. The flower for Children’s Day is therefore the iris, which is in bloom in Japan in May.


Teriyaki drumsticks

Special food is eaten, most famously Kashiwa-mochi, a rice dough and sweetened bean sweet wrapped in an oak leaf. I don’t know where you could get Kashiwa-mochi in Australia, so I suggest using any alternative sweet food. Pikelets, jam and cream or ice cream with berries, both have the red and white colours of mochi and bean paste (and the Japanese flag). You can buy origami paper and toy carp streamers from the “100 yen” shop in Australia, such as Daiso, for as little as $2.80.
Children’s Day Party Menu
I suggest the following recipes for a Children’s Day party:
Teriyaki drumsticks   and a rice dish such as;
Gomoku sushi (“special”sushi rice with a scattered topping)
Takikomi Gohan ( soy and vegetable flavoured rice)
Onigiri (rice balls)



Gomoku sushi




   

Takikomi Gohan

  


onigiri, rice balls



Add a salad and a sweet treat. Rice crackers would also be good in place of chips as party food.  
Another option would be Oyako Domburi (the parent and child- chicken and egg domburi)
Recipes to come in my next blog posts.