Mochi (Japanese rice dessert)

Step-by-step preparation

Cooking time: 30 mins

1. STEP 1

   

   Rice, water, granulated sugar - the base for a recipe with a neutral taste and white color. You can use green tea instead of water (or add Japanese powder as a dye), supplement with coconut milk, citrus juices, which will tint the dough in different shades.

2. STEP 2

   

   Grind the rice in a coffee grinder. (This is for those who don't have rice starch or flour.)

3. STEP 3

   

   Mix rice flour, sugar and liquid well

4. STEP 4

   

   The mixture should be placed in a microwave-safe dish, LOOSELY covered (I used baking paper. Place it in the microwave on maximum for 3 minutes, remove and stir with a spoon. If the mass already looks like plasticine, proceed to the next step, if it still too liquid - steam it for 1-2 minutes.

5. STEP 5

   

   Prepare a bowl of cold water and sprinkle the work surface with starch (you can use regular starch, if you have rice starch, use rice starch). It is advisable to have gloves because the rice mass is very hot.

6. STEP 6

   

   Mash the rice mass until it becomes uniform in consistency and plasticine, like plasticine. Wet gloves (or hands) in cold water

7. STEP 7

   

   When the mass becomes homogeneous,

8. STEP 8

   

   form mochi into the desired shape. I decorated mine with candied kumquats because I wanted to emulate New Year's kagami mochi (of course, the real ones are much larger!)

Comments on the recipe

MaryaBess

12.08.2023

4.5

I really liked the recipe. I made chocolate ones: I added cocoa to the dough, and put melted chocolate and milk inside. It tasted similar to potato cakes. Next time I'll make pineapple mochi. I apologize for the quality of the photo, but I don't have another camera.

Marianne

12.08.2023

4.7

A very original dessert, I didn’t even know about this before. Of Japanese cuisine, I only ate sushi and miso soup. The taste, of course, will be very exotic, since I can hardly imagine sweet rice. But it’s worth a try, especially since it’s prepared This dish is very simple and you need very few ingredients. And kumquat can probably be replaced with any other fruit.

Magnago

12.08.2023

4.5

Marianna, actually, there shouldn’t even be a kumquat there, I just took whatever came to hand, purely for decoration. In fact, there should be Japanese orange, which is rarely used in Japan. This recipe is an illustration for an article about Japanese New Year's dishes, there is a drawing of what real kagami mochi looks like. For all other mochi that are prepared at other times of the year, you don’t need anything at all except rice dough. The taste can be enriched with green tea, tansy, wormwood and coconut milk. The most delicious mochi is made with a strawberry filling, topped with a layer of fermented bean paste, and then a rice dough shell. But the shapes and colors (made with natural dyes) of mochi depend on the time of year. Actually, mochi MUST be seasonal. I'll try to come up with a couple more design options later. Those who lived in Japan for a long time and then left usually miss mochi. They even came up with this kind of ersatz from the microwave. But for an unaccustomed person the taste is strange, so never make the portions large. It just looks so original, spring and summer mochi with flowers are just pictures! Such mochi are a good souvenir or decoration, essentially like marzipan figurines in Europe. They are a beautiful finishing touch to a Japanese style meal. But in general, almost all Japanese desserts are quite strange things for a European. I'm planning to make a few more in the near future - it's all "mind-blowing"! Potato cakes and jelly, for example...

Marianne

12.08.2023

5

Magnago, thank you, I just read with interest an article about Japanese New Year’s dishes. It was especially unexpected to learn that rice fields are fertilized with fish). Potato cakes are also hard for me to imagine, but I love potato pies, and “potato” cakes, and here are cakes made from potatoes themselves)...

Magnago

12.08.2023

4.8

In appearance, these cakes are similar to Mont Blanc, only made from purple potatoes. And jelly from it, with boiled chestnuts as decoration.

Marikusya

12.08.2023

4.9

These cakes look like Mont Blanc Oh! Is Mont Blanc a mountain?

Magnago

12.08.2023

4.5

Oops, now we’ll have to make “Mont Blancs” too! They are not in the database, they cannot be shown. These are also cakes, sorry, I didn’t put them in quotes. However, in my opinion, Japanese potato ones are easier to make than Mont Blancs.