Japanese Shiro-An White Bean Paste and Nerikiri Base

Japan — shiro-an as a wagashi base established during the Edo period alongside the formalisation of kaiseki and tea ceremony wagashi sequence

Shiro-an (白餡) — white bean paste made from shiro-ingen mame (white kidney beans, navy beans, or haricot beans) or te-bora mame (a Japanese white bean variety) — is the foundation of nerikiri, the hand-shaped wagashi of kaiseki and formal tea ceremony. Unlike the red bean pastes (an) made from azuki, shiro-an is more neutral in flavour, creamy-sweet, and provides the perfect canvas for added flavourings (matcha, yuzu, sakura, kinako) and for taking colour (the white base accepts natural pigments clearly). Making shiro-an requires: (1) soaking beans overnight; (2) boiling until fully soft; (3) passing through a fine sieve (uragoshi) to create smooth fine paste; (4) pressing through a cloth (sarashi) to remove maximum moisture; (5) cooking down in a pot with sugar in stages until the paste reaches the correct water activity for shaping. Nerikiri is shiro-an cooked further to drier consistency, then mixed with gyūhi (glutinous rice dough) in a ratio of approximately 10:1 (shiro-an:gyūhi), creating a pliable, workable paste that holds the precise impressions made by bamboo tools, shapers, and the wagashi craftsperson's hands.

Mildly sweet, creamy, bean-forward with delicate vanilla-like note; flavourings dominate over the neutral base; texture is the primary statement — smooth, dense, just-yielding