Making Futomaki To Celebrate Setsubun

In Japan, and our home, we celebrate Setsubun by making and eating futomaki. Learn how to make this delicious roll and all about this special holiday in this post.

Read this post first - How To Easily Protect Your Property When Traveling - if you are traveling to Japan to have your futomaki!

My mom was Japanese.  That meant that half of our family lived in Japan.  And lucky for me and my sisters, we spent entire summers living in Japan.  Because of that, I get so homesick for my second home, when summer arrives each year.  I miss our family and friends, the lifestyle, the celebrations and the food that we eat as we celebrate.  Although, we can't travel to Japan for every holiday, we can celebrate and keep the traditions alive in our homes here in the US.  One of our favorite holidays is Setsubun because we can eat one of favorite foods, futomaki.

Setsubun is celebrated one day before the start of spring, which in Japan is February 3.  One custom that is practiced during this holiday is throwing roasted soybeans.  You throw beans inside the home, usually at a family member who is wearing a demon mask and running around the house, to chase away any demons.  After the bean throwing, you have the bean eating.  Everyone eats the amount of beans that corresponds with their age.  Without revealing my age, I can tell you that if I had to eat that many beans, I would never be able to eat the delicious futomaki after!  So, needless to say, we skip , this part of the celebration.

After the bean throwing fun, comes the eating!  I would like to share our recipe for futomaki.  It is called ehomaki when made to eat for Setsubun and should contain 7 fillings.  The 7 fillings represent the Seven Deities of Good Fortune.  They can be any filling you choose.  Our recipe has only 5 but you can add shrimp, imitation crab meat or a number of other ingredients if you want your roll to be officially Setsubun ready.

There are a couple of things you need to know first though before you make and eat your own futomaki, if you are making it to celebrate Setsubun.   You must keep the roll whole and not sliced like you would see it in your favorite sushi restaurant.  If you slice your roll, you will be slicing away good luck.  Next you will have to face the lucky direction which this year was east northeast.  (You can find the direction of the year and more information about Setsubun here.)  Then you will eat your futomaki in silence as you contemplate the events of the past year and look forward to enjoying the new year.  If you eat your futomaki correctly, you will have good fortune.

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Futomaki

(makes 4 rolls)

Ingredients:

Yaki sushi nori - roasted seaweed 

Prepare the following ingredients:

1 cup uncooked rice (I use genmai but short-grain Japanese white rice would make a better roll) - makes 3 cups cooked

Cool rice.  Mix 2 Tbs. sugar, 1/4 cup rice vinegar and a dash of salt in a medium bowl.  Add and gently mix in cooled rice and set aside.

8 dried shiitake mushrooms

Soak mushrooms in 1 1/4 cup water.  Turn mushrooms over a few times.  After mushrooms soften  (about 30-60 minutes) remove them from the water.  Squeeze out excess water from the mushroom into the water they were soaking in.  You should have about 1 cup of water.  Add 2 Tbs. sugar, 1 Tbs. mirin and 1 Tbs. soy sauce to the water.  Pour the flavored water into a frying pan.  Slice the mushrooms (discard the stems) and add them to the frying pan.  Cook mushrooms on medium high heat, stirring occasionally and watching carefully, until there is no more water left in the pan.  Set cooked mushrooms aside.

Tomagoyaki

Break 4 eggs into a bowl and mix together with 1/2 Tbs. mirin, 1 tsp. sugar and 1/4 tsp. kosher or sea salt.  Spray frying pan with Pam or use a small amount of oil if you prefer.  When pan is heated, add a thin layer of egg, rotating pan to spread egg over entire bottom of pan.   When egg is almost cooked, but still wet, fold one edge of the egg over about an inch or two and and keep folding until the egg ends up on the opposite side of the pan.  Add another thin layer of egg and when egg is cooked as before, fold the folded egg over the new layer of egg.  Continue cooking the egg in this manner with the remaining egg.

Allow tomagoyaki to cool, then slice into approximately 1/2 inch wide and the width of the seaweed sheet.

Kampyo

One 2.1 oz package of prepared kampyo.  You can find this in the freezer or fridge of your favorite Japanese supermarket.  There is no more preparation if you buy it this way.  If you can only find dried kampyo, or prefer to use it dried, cut the kampyo to the width of the seaweed and then follow the same cooking directions for the mushrooms to prepare the kampyo for your roll.

Takuwan

Slice the pickled radish to about 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch thickness and the width of your sushi nori (seaweed sheet).

Cucumber

Slice the one cucumber in half lengthwise.  Cut the half piece of cucumber into 4 pieces.  Trim the seeds off the cucumber slices.

Place the sushi nori on a bamboo mat made for sushi rolling.  Spread 3/4 cup of rice over your seaweed sheet to about an inch from the edge of the top and bottom of the seaweed.  Place the prepared ingredients side by side on top of the rice.

Now you are ready to roll your futomaki.  It is very hard to describe how to roll sushi and I haven't made a video to demonstrate this technique.  I would like to direct you to where I was directed by DIL Nicole.  Yuko and Noriko from Japanese Cooking 101 helped me roll my first futomaki!  Go here for their tutorial.

Read this post if you are traveling to Japan with a dad!

10 Father's Day Gifts For The Traveling Dad

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Enjoy your futomaki and Happy Setsubun!