Japanese Wet Rice Crackers: Nure Senbei & Nure Okaki
Senbei (せんべい/煎餅), Okaki (おかき), and Arare (あられ) are three major types of traditional Japanese rice crackers that have long been favorites in Japan.
While Senbei generally uses non-glutinous rice called Uruchi Mai (うるち米), the main ingredient of Okaki and Arare is glutinous rice, Mochi Gome (餅米).
These crackers usually have a pleasant crunchy texture in common, but there are exceptions, which are Nure Senbei (ぬれせんべい) and Nure Okaki (ぬれおかき).
Nure Senbei & Nure Okaki
For the texture, the name of the exceptional type of Senbei and Okaki includes the word Nure (ぬれ), meaning wet.
Unlike regular baked Senbei & Okaki, these rice crackers are dunked in soy sauce right after grilling, which makes their dough soft and limp.
Since the liquid seasoning well infiltrates into the dough by doing that, Nure Okaki and Nure Senbei soak up lots of flavors.
As for history, they are modern snacks, and Nure Senbei was first made and sold by the confectionery shop in Choshi City, Chiba Prefecture, Kashiwaya (柏屋) (Google Maps) in 1963.
Today, several Japanese confectionery makers produce and sell wet rice crackers. But I haven’t heard of Nure Arare yet. By the way, Nuresen (ぬれせん) is short for Nure Senbei.
