Matsunaga Star Shiruko Sand Biscuits

Shiruko Sand puts red bean soup inside a biscuit, and the idea is odder than the result.

Shiruko is oshiruko, the sweet azuki soup Japanese households drink in winter with a piece of mochi floating in it — one of the oldest comfort foods here.

Matsunaga Seika takes the flavour of that and sandwiches it, as a smooth azuki paste, between two thin biscuits.

What arrives tastes neither like a Western cookie nor like a traditional wagashi but somewhere in between, which is exactly where the company has been operating since 1966.

The paste is not pure azuki.

Apple jam goes in alongside it, with sweetened condensed skimmed milk and honey, and that combination is what gives the filling its particular character — the apple adds a faint fruit acidity that keeps the bean paste from sitting heavy, and the dairy rounds it off.

Japanese reviewers tend to find the result more complex than they expected. The biscuit itself is dry and crumbly, built to absorb some of the paste’s moisture over time.

Matsunaga Seika is a Komaki company in Aichi, and Shiruko Sand is effectively its entire identity — the product has been running for sixty years and the company now sells little else.

This is the Star Shiruko Sand, the individually wrapped version, marked by the red soup bowl printed on the pack.

About this item
Item Name : Star Shiruko Sando
Brand : Matsunaga Seika
Item Form : Biscuit
Allergens: Milk, wheat, soybean, apple
Number of Items : 60g (Pack of 1)