Using Mirin instead of Sugar

Those of you who have experience in cooking Japanese cuisine may be familiar with a popular condiment, mirin. Mirin is a sweet rice wine made with glutinous rice. It has been around from the 15th century and consumed as a luxury sweet wine among women in the Edo period. Nowadays, mirin is mainly used for cooking but a good quality mirin is also nice to drink on its own.
Along with soy sauce, sake, and miso, mirin is one of the standard condiment that most homes would have in the cupboard. The role that mirin plays in Japanese cooking is very diverse.

• It adds a subtle sweetness to the dish
• It draws flavor and tastiness
• It gives glazes to sauces
• It takes away the smell of fish and meat
• It firms up the tissues and prevents fishes from falling apart when cooking.​

Mirn can also be used as a substitute to sugar. As I try to avoid sugar (especially white sugar) in my family's daily diet, I've been using honey, maple syrup, brown sugar and coconut sugar. I've also added mirin to this list lately and made custard pudding and strawberry mousse using mirin. In actual fact, it was much sweeter than I expected so I will have to cut down on the amount next time.

If you would like to use mirin as a sweetener, just boil the mirin down to half the quantity until you get a syrupy consistency and keep it in a clean jar. This is called Nikiri Mirin (Boiled down Mirin) The alcohol has burned off, so you can use it for children too. It is advisable to use a good quality mirin (usually darker in color) for this.

For more info on mirin, please visit, Mikawa Mirin's website.