How do you make Mochi?

Mochi is a great tasting traditional dessert. There are a few different ways that you can make it such as pounding sweet glutinous rice with a mallet, or by mixing water and rice flour together.

This recipe is is for Kashiwa Mochi, a type of mochi that is often served on Childrens Day in Japan and traditionally served in an oak leaf. This uses the much easier method of mixing rice flour with water to make the mochi and then adding an azuki sweet red bean paste filling.

-= Mochi Recipe =-

INGREDIENTS:

Azuki Sweet Red Beans – 1 can or 200g

Joshinko Non-glutinous Rice Flour – 200g

Water – 280ml

HOW TO PREPARE:

1. Start by emptying the contents of the azuki tin into a saucepan and gently heat over a low heat to thicken the bean paste.

2. While the liquid is being removed from the azuki beans, mix the rice flour and water well in a bowl before covering the bowl and then heating in a microwave on full heat for 4 minutes.

3. Remove the bowl from the microwave and mix the contents again. Then put back in the microwave for a further 3 minutes.

4. Remove the bowl from the microwave and you should have a nice solid dough. Use your hands to knead the dough until it is soft and as smooth as possible and then split it into 8 equally sized flattened pieces. Your dough should look a little like bread dough at this stage.

5. Take the azuki paste off the hob and allow it to cool before splitting it into 8 small pieces. Place the sweet bean paste onto the dough then fold the dough over and seal around the edge so that the paste inside is fully sealed.

Then just wait for it to cool down and eat.

I hope this helps. This recipe is from Japan Centre who also have the ingredients available to purchase online for delivery to the UK and Europe.

http://www.japancentre.com/recipes/150

Combine rice flour, sugar and water to make a thick paste, form into mochi balls, steam until they turn translucent. 10-12 minutes. You can fill the mochi with red bean paste, available in Asian stores.

google: japan friend; find like a middle aged woman, and ask her for tips which im sure she'll be happy to give