Peel a sweet potato and cut it into rounds a centimeter to a centimeter and a half thick. Wrap each round in a dough of wheat flour and dumpling flour, with sweet bean paste tucked in alongside, and steam for about twenty minutes. The dough is thin enough that when it comes out you can see the cross-section of the potato through it.

Ikinari is a Kumamoto word meaning simple, quick, right away. The explanation given for the name is that it can be made in very little time, and that if a visitor turns up unannounced you can put one in front of them.

It belongs to the Kikuchi district, and it was also made widely around the foot of Aso, where volcanic ash soil grows sweet potatoes in quantity.

It began as something eaten in the gaps during autumn farm work, standing in a field. It has since become an everyday sweet, sold as a souvenir across the country and served as the dessert with school lunches. The name has not changed to match. It still says, in dialect, that this is what you make when you have no time and someone has arrived at the door. There is a second account of the name, incidentally, which says it refers to cutting the potato quickly, skin still on.