Soft Soy-Soaked Rice Crackers (ぬれせんべい, Nure Senbei)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Seirō (bamboo steamer), or a metal steamer basket lined with a damp cloth
• •Suribachi and pestle, or a sturdy bowl with a damp wooden spoon
• •Wire cooling rack
• •Charcoal grill or fish grill, or a toaster oven or broiler
• •Shallow dish for dipping tare

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the tare

   Put the mirin, sake, and sugar in a small pan and bring them to a quiet simmer for about ninety seconds, just long enough to dissolve the sugar and soften the edge of the alcohol. Add the shōyu, warm it until the surface barely trembles, then take it off the heat. Don't boil the soy hard. Its fragrance is part of the dish, and a hard boil makes it flat and sharp.

   Pour the tare into a shallow dish and keep it warm. A warm bath enters the hot cracker more readily than a cold one.
2. 2

   Mix the dough

   Put the jōshinko and salt in a heatproof bowl. Pour in the boiling water a little at a time, stirring with chopsticks or a wooden spoon until the flour gathers into a rough dough. When it is cool enough to touch, knead it for three minutes. It should feel firm and smooth, not sticky; if it crumbles, add hot water a teaspoon at a time. The boiling water begins to swell the rice starch, which is why the dough can hold together without wheat or egg.

3. 3

   Steam the dough

   Tear the dough into six rough chunks and set them on a damp cloth in a seirō, or in a metal steamer basket. Steam over steady heat for twenty minutes, until the pieces look slightly translucent at the edges and spring back when pressed. This is not ceremony. The rice flour must cook through now, or the finished senbei will taste chalky no matter how carefully you grill it.

4. 4

   Pound and shape

   Move the hot dough to a suribachi, or to a sturdy bowl, and pound or knead it with a damp pestle or wooden spoon until it turns smooth and a little elastic, three to five minutes. Work while it is hot, because the starch bonds cleanly then. Divide it into eight pieces, roll each into a ball, and flatten between sheets of parchment into rounds about 6 to 7cm wide and 4 to 5mm thick.

   Even thickness matters. Thin edges scorch before the center dries, and thick centers stay pasty under the soy.
5. 5

   Dry the rounds

   Set the rounds on a wire rack and dry them in an airy spot for three to four hours, turning them every hour. They should feel dry and leathery on the surface but still flex slightly if you lift one. This pause is part of the method. Damp rounds stick and puff wildly; properly dried rounds blister neatly and take the tare evenly.

6. 6

   Grill the senbei

   Heat a charcoal grill, fish grill, toaster oven, or broiler. Grill the rounds, turning often, until they have pale golden spots, small blisters, and edges that lift a little, about eight to ten minutes total depending on the heat. You want them hot, dry-faced, and open to the seasoning, not scorched. Burnt rice turns the soy bitter, and there is nothing to hide that taste.

7. 7

   Soak while hot

   Move each senbei straight from the grill into the warm tare. Press it gently under the surface for fifteen to twenty seconds per side, longer if you want the Chōshi-style chew especially deep. Lift it to a rack and let it rest for ten minutes so the seasoning settles through the rice. This is the whole trick: hot senbei drink, cool senbei only get painted.

Chef Tips

• •Use jōshinko made from non-glutinous rice. If the bag says mochigome, mochiko, or sweet rice flour, save it for another dish. Nure senbei should bend and chew, but it should still taste like a rice cracker, not mochi.
• •Choose a good Japanese koikuchi shōyu, ideally one with a round aroma and no harsh bite. In a dish this plain, the soy sauce is not background. It is the voice.
• •Do not skip the drying. It looks like waiting, but it is a tool. The dry skin lets the rice blister on the grill, then the hot cracks pull in the tare.
• •Dip the crackers as they finish grilling, one by one. A tray of cooled crackers dropped into tare later will taste salty on the outside and bland within.

Advance Preparation

• •The tare can be made up to one week ahead and kept refrigerated. Warm it gently before dipping the crackers.
• •The shaped rounds can dry uncovered in the refrigerator overnight. Let them stand at room temperature for twenty minutes before grilling so they heat evenly.
• •Finished nure senbei are best the day they are made. For a home batch, keep leftovers airtight in the refrigerator for up to two days and rewarm briefly in a dry pan to bring back the chew.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 50g)