it’s all about mochi today. for the past few weeks, I’ve been craving mochi, even since I had my favorite mochi ice cream and realized I really just wanted the mochi and could have easily left the ice cream behind. I’ve bought freshly-made mochi at some of the local Asian markets, but it’s never quite to my taste -- I prefer smooth, super-chewy Japanese-style mochi, and no one seems to make that here.
so today I made my own! I stopped by the wonderful Asahi imports and bought some mochi rice, which I promptly put away to deal with another day. too much work! I also bought some mochiko, a.k.a. glutinous rice flour, and used that to make a very simple recipe of microwave mochi. I then split the incredibly sticky dough in half and flavored the second half with green tea powder (matcha). both the plain and the green tea mochi are absolutely delicious; very chewy and smooth and yummy.
I adapted the basic microwaved mochi recipe to reduce the sugar slightly (and my finished product was still PLENTY sweet):
microwaved mochi
2 cups mochiko
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
mix together in bowl: 2 cups mochiko, 1 cup sugar. add 2 cups water and mix with a whisk until perectly smooth. cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 4 minutes. take out and mix thoroughly. microwave again for 3-4 minutes more. knead for a bit on a cutting board dusted with katakuriko (potato flour) and cut into pieces. dust pieces with more katakuriko and store.
after dusting my mochi pieces, I set some of them out to gobble up today and froze the rest. why do I love this stuff so? who knows? who cares? I want to try a butter mochi recipe next, all of which look crazy decadent.
I also made a very yummy lunch salad with sushi rice (not the mochi rice!), roast chicken, scallions, cucumber and carrots, seasoned with a typical rice vinegar-sugar-salt mixture. wonderful; could have been even better with some toasted sesame seeds. next time!
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