Mochi and New Year's article in the Japan Times, plus a very rich buttery mochi dish

I am a few days late posting this, but this month’s Japan Times article is about the traditions surrounding mochi or omochi, the sticky pounded rice cake. Mochi is both eaten and displayed in the display alcove of Japanese homes through the New Year’s holiday period (which usually lasts until the 3rd). The main display piece is a kagamimochi, or “mirror mochi” (read the article for the origins of that name). I didn’t get to include a photos of a kagamimochi in the article, but here’s a nice photo of a typical modern version by David Z. from flickr:

As you can see, the satsuma or clementine on top is plastic, and the mochi itself is sealed in a plastic container, which keeps it fresh for eating later. In the olden days the mochi stack was exposed for days, developing cracks along the surface. Some people interpreted the cracks to mean the year would be good or bad. The modern plastic-clad version is not as picturesque, but it probably is a lot more hygenic.

Ready-to-grill dried mochi cakes are easy of course, but if you want to make mochi from scratch and you don’t have a mochi making machine, here is my method for making mochi with a heavy-duty mixer, such as a KitchenAid. I’ve tried this many times and it always comes out pretty well! Although I do have to watch my mochi intake..they are basically compressed and condensed white rice - pure carbs. Ouch.

Speaking of caloric…did you know that the bland taste of mochi is a perfect foil for very Western ingredients such as cheese and butter? When I was a kid, my sister and I used to love making ‘mochi pizza’ - pre-grilled mochi spread with ketchup (we didn’t have pizza sauce in Japan back then), topped with shredded cheese and a bit of Italian seasoning.

I saw the original version of this buttery mochi dish on a Japanese TV show about a small nori maker. I’ve since tweaked it quite a bit, using brown butter (or in other words, letting the butter cook a bit more until it’s browned) which I think improves it quite a bit. The nori maker’s wife said it was her favorite way to enjoy mochi. No wonder - it s is absolutely delicious…and so very bad for you. Not the best thing to start off a new year filled with good intentions maybe…so perhaps save it for a special occasion, like surviving the first day back at work/school.

Serves 1 to 5.

5 square mochi cakes (available at a Japanese grocery store in the dried foods section) 1 stick or 4 oz / 120g unsalted butter (see recipe)1 Tbs. soy sauce 1/2 cup (approximate) chopped green onion 2 sheets of nori seaweed, crumbled

Pre-grill the mochi cakes on a mochi grill, or in a toaster oven or regular oven. If using a toaster oven, cook the mochi cakes for about 5-7 minutes or until they puff up, and are blistered and slightly browning on the surface. (The puffing will deflate once you take them out.) If using a regular oven, preheat it to 400°F / 200°C , put the mochi cakes on a baking sheet lined with kitchen parchment paper or silicone baking sheets to prevent sticking, and bake for 5-10 minutes until puffy and blistered. If using a mochi grill, put the grill on a burner set to medium-low, plop the rice cakes on and watch then puff up. Flip over once.

Melt the butter in a hot frying pan over medium heat until it starts to brown a bit (for a more detailed description of how to make brown butter, see Elise’s method). Drizzle in the soy sauce - be careful, it may spit a bit.

Put the grilled mochi cakes in the pan in a single layer and cook until the mochi starts to just brown a bit and the whole thing smells caramel-y and marvelous. Flip over and cook for another minute. Be careful not to let the butter burn.

Transfer to a plate, pouring any residual butter over the mochi. Sprinkle the crumbled nori (your hands are the best tool for crumbling) and green onions on top. Serve while piping hot, making sure each mochi bite is well covered in that butter. Tell yourself you’ll go on a diet the next day.

If you use salted butter, reduce the soy sauce to 1/2 or simply omit it. You can season with a little salt instead of soy sauce.

If you don’t like nori, the green onions alone are pretty good. Or try…crispy bacon and green onion. Really.

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Fried Mochi Rice (Nuo Mi Fan/糯米饭)

Nuo Mi Fan (Fried Mochi Rice) pictures (1 of 4)

I love discovering great looking and delicious food blogs, and recently, I found The Unseasoned Wok while browsing around. The story of a daughter-in-law learning authentic Chinese cooking from a master Chinese chef/restaurateur had me ogling The Unseasoned Wok and the delicious posts for hours. The nori-wrapped shrimp—one of my favorite appetizers was calling my name. Meet Jamie, the blogger behind The Unseasoned Wok , who blogs from Hawaii.

When I first received Bee’s email asking me to be a guest on Rasa Malaysia, I was star struck. Up until then, I was a girl with a crush, lurking around Bee’s site typing out comments and then deleting them because they weren’t smart enough. Now here I am with a whole post to fill on Rasa Malaysia. Thank you Bee for having me!

Bee asked me to post a dish that is true to my roots. If you don’t know me, my roots are Japanese, transplanted in Hawaiian soil generations ago amidst a bed of sprouting diversity during the plantation days of old Hawaii. Most recently I’ve added Chinese to the mix when I married a smart and cute Chinese guy who can not only whip up an awesome fried rice, but can also serve as a handy spell checker and blog groupie.

Before I met my husband, I barely knew what to do with a clove of garlic, and my understanding of “good” Chinese food was an order of beef broccoli drowning in brown sauce. I wasn’t really a fan, mostly because fortune cookies and soggy take-out don’t qualify as Chinese food. And then I married him—the only son of a Chinese restaurateur. That is how my education in all things good and tasty began.

Today I am sharing with you my family’s recipe for nuo mi fan (pronounced noh-my-fahn in Cantonese). This is the dish that comes to mind when I think of being true to my roots, Chinese home cooking, family, togetherness, comfort and laughter.

Popo says, “Eat nuo mi fan when it’s cold because it warms your stomach.” I’m sure it has something to do with the Chinese belief in the balance of hot and cold, yin and yang, and qi. But I like to think she means eat nuo mi fan when it’s cold because it warms the soul. It’s a dish that sits on the family buffet, totally unglamorous, but wholly satisfying. It’s there with us on family holidays, at Sunday dinners, and to greet out-of-town guests, silently comforting us with each chewy morsel. And when the day is done, and you’re exhausted and ravenous, a heaping bowl of nuo mi fan on the dinner table is all you need to bring you back to the important things in life.

The Chinese have a saying, “A family with an old person has a living treasure of gold.” This recipe comes from my father-in-law, our old person, our treasure. I hope it brings you as much joy as it does our family. Enjoy!

(Click on Page 2 for the Nuo Mi Fan Recipe)

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Homemade mochi (pounded rice) the modern way

Every year around this time, I get a yearning for mochi, that bland, sticky dough made by pounding glutionous or sweet rice into a paste. Mochi (or omochi) is traditionally eaten instead of rice during the New Year holidays (which lasts until the 7th in Japan traditionally), since it can be dried into long-keeping cakes that can be reconstituted easily. Although commercial dried mochi cakes are available at any Japanese grocery store and can’t be beat for convenience, freshly made mochi is a very different thing - softer, stickier, with the natural sweetness of the rice coming through.

I have thought off and on about getting a mochi tsuki ki or mochi making machine, for years. These things are available in Japan nowadays for around 10,000 to 15,000 yen. But it would be expensive and heavy to haul one over from Japan, and here in Europe, where rice cookers have only now started to become widely available, mochi machines are not not going to be stocked at my local kitchen-appliance store any time soon. And talk about a single-purpose appliance! A mochi making machine works similarly to a bread machine - in fact, the first bread machines (called “home bakeries” in Japan) were developed based on the kneading action of mochi making machines. But, I don’t own a bread machine either, and I am not that eager to get one. Besides, I am not sure of the motor of an average bread machine is strong enough to deal with the strong stickiness of pounded rice. There are combination bread and mochi making machines available in Japan, but they are either expensive or have mediocre reputations. Plus, there’s that problem of hauling one over from Japan.

I’ve tried making mochi in a food processor - once. That didn’t work out well. The mochi didn’t have time to turn into a sticky, smooth mass before the motor of the food processor overheated. The sticky mass had a tendency to want to climb into the middle of the food processor too.

I even tried making mochi by pounding the grains in a mortar and pestle. That took so long to make a tiny amount, that it wasn’t worth it. And again, it was very hard to get the mochi smooth yet sticky/strong enough for my liking.

Sure, I could make a mochi of sorts from mochiko or rice powder. That yields mochi that is very smooth - but, for me, lacking in body, not to mention that freshly cooked sweet-rice taste. Also mochi dango (see mitarashi dango) have a different texture from fresh mochi. Yes, I’m particular.

So my homemade fresh mochi plans lay dormant for years…until recently, when I finally got a KitchenAid stand mixer. I am not anti-appliance per se, but I tend to really procrastinate a lot about introducing new machinery into my kitchen. I was never sure that I could justify the space a stand mixer would take up - could I not knead dough by hand, mix cookie dough in the food processor, beat eggs with my handheld beater? Besides, here in Europe KitchenAid, the brand I wanted, is way more expensive than they are in the U.S. But a couple of months ago, one of my local electronics stores had the KitchenAid Artisan models on sale. I couldn’t resist. And so, a sexy white model entered my life. Why did I wait so long? I’ve named my KitchenAid Agatha, and when my still-in-development kitchen is finally in place, she will occupy pride of place there.

The beauty of a KitchenAid mixer is its super sturdy motor. You can leave it on to mix and knead for far longer than you can a food processor, and it won’t overheat. This, I sensed, would be the key to making mochi that was sticky and smooth. And so it was. Making fresh mochi is now so easy that I barely have to think about it. It’s easier than kneading bread, almost as easy as mixing up a batch of cookie dough.

Besides a mixer, having a rice cooker will make the whole process even easier. (I always thought that mochi rice had to be steamed, so discovering that it could be made in a rice cooker with no fuss was a revelation too.) If you do, and you have some sweet or glutinous rice on hand, you could have freshly made mochi in 2 hours from now.

This makes enough fresh mochi to feed at least 4 people, if not more.

3 rice-cooker cups sweet or glutinous rice or mochi rice (see Looking At Rice) 3 rice-cooker cups water Toppings of your choice - see below

Equipment suggested: A food/stand mixer such as a KitchenAid with a sturdy motor, a rice cooker, a fine-mesh sieve or colander

Wash the rice a few times (see Japanese rice basics for the method) in several changes of water. Leave to drain for at least half an hour in a sieve or colander.

Put the rice in the bowl of a rice cooker with the 3 cups of water. (Note that the rice to water ratio is 1:1, which differs from the ratio recommended for regular Japonica rice.) Set your rice cooker to cook the rice in one hour, if it has a timer. If it doesn’t have a timer, let the rice soak in the water for about half an hour before switching the cooker on.

When the rice is cooked, put it in the bowl of your mixer while it’s still hot with the dough hook attached. It’s important to start the kneading/beating while the rice is still hot for maximum stickiness and smoothness. Cool grains turn a bit hard.

Keep kneading. I start out at the low speed, switch up to the high speed for a minute or two, then drop it down to mid-speed Most of the kneading is done at mid-speed, with a few bursts of high-speed thrown in.

Here is how it looks about 10 minutes in. It’s already pretty smooth, though there is still some graininess.

After 20 minutes, the mochi is almost totally smooth. At this point the mochi has cooled down quite a bit, and kneading further doesn’t really get rid of the residual slight graininess. But no matter - when you eat it you will barely notice the grains. (I suppose that re-heating the mochi and re-kneading it might work, but it’s not worth the bother for me.)

Wet your clean hands and pull small bits off the mochi mass to make balls. Here are a few mochi balls made from the freshly kneaded mochi. Smooth enough I think!

If you want to keep the mochi for later use, put the mochi dough on a large piece of plastic wrap (just pouring it out stickily from the bowl should work). Wrap the mochi up with the wrap if you want to keep it soft. Alternatively, put the mochi dough on a surface covered with cornstarch or potato starch, cover with a dusting of more of the same, and leave to dry out a bit - a day should do it. Cut it into portions with a sharp knife, and wrap each portion with plastic wrap.

If you want to use fresh mochi in your New Years ozoni or ozouni soup, just drop the soft balls into the soup a couple of minutes before serving, so that they heat through. Don’t cook them longer than that or they will just melt into the soup!

Fresh mochi can also be used to make moffles - just plop the dough onto the waffle iron. When the surface cooks and crisps, the dough won’t stick to the iron.

Alternate way of cooking the rice, if you don’t have a rice cooker: steaming

Steaming mochi rice is the traditional way of cooking it, but it takes a lot longer. After rinsing the rice, put it in a bowl with plenty of water, and leave for several hours or over night. When you’re ready to cook it, drain off the water, line your steamer with a clean piece of cheesecloth or a cotton or linen kitchen towel, and spread the rice on it evenly. Steam the rice for 40 minutes until the grains are cooked through.

I don’t try to make more mochi than will be consumed in one sitting, since it’s really best when it’s fresh. The best way to deal with fresh mochi is to make whatever you plan to mix with the mochi beforehand ready in a bowl or plate, and to dump the mochi balls you pull off the dough mass with wet hands directly onto that.

Here’s one of my favorite ways to eat fresh mochi: with mounds of grated daikon radish and a little soy sauce. The sharp freshness of the daikon radish counteracts the stickiness of the mochi perfectly, and also makes it easier to digest (or so they say).

Here’s my other favorite way: with natto! I chop up some green onion, mix with natto and soy sauce, and drop the mochi balls on that and mix. The sliminess of the natto goes so well with the slimy-stickiness of the mochi.

Here’s my third favorite way to eat fresh mochi: with kinako (roasted soy bean flour) and sugar. The ratio of kinako to sugar is entirely up to you - I prefer a 2:1 kinako to sugar mix, some prefer a 1:1 ratio. Alternatively, try unsweetened kinako and molasses - or if you’re in the UK, black treacle. Either sugar syrup is a good stand in for kuromitsu, which is a syrup made from dark brown unrefined sugar.

You can also mix in things into fresh mochi dough itself. Just add whatever you want to mix in during the final minutes of the kneading process. Some things to try: ground up sesame seed, ground up toasted walnuts or other nuts. A traditional additive to mochi is yomogi, a kind of bitter green wild herb. In Japan you can even get dessicated yomogi powder. The mochi in the kinako mochi photo above has some yomogi powder mixed in.

Finally, here’s a mochi dish you can make with fresh mochi or dried mochi cakes. If using fresh mochi, plop a few balls in a hot non-stick frying pan until it’s dried out and lightly browned on the bottom. If using dried mochi cakes, pop them into a toaster oven or oven and bake/toast until slightly puffy. Take the mochi out of the frying pan if you had them in there, add some butter to the pan with lots of chopped green onion, and toss around for a minute. Add some soy sauce. Pour the butter-onion-sauce over the hot mochi, and top with some shredded nori seaweed. Add more soy sauce if you wish. This is absolutely ruinous to the waistline, and so good.

When I was little, and the whole clan gathered at my grandparents’ house in Saitama for New Years, I remember my Aunt Chieko and Uncle Isao hauling out the usu (large wooden mortar) and kine (wooden hammer-shaped pestle) for mochitsuki - pounding mochi. My uncle would beat down on the rice with the kine, and in between his poundings my aunt, crouched next to the usu, would deftly turn the rice over with her bare hands. If she hesitated or lost the rhythm, her hands could have been crushed by the heavy hammerhead of the kine. But nothing ever went wrong - they worked together in perfect harmony.

Looking back, my aunt and uncle’s mochitsuki concert seems like a reflection of their marriage. Neither of them had an easy life - my aunt was orphaned at a young age and was brought up by relatives, and my uncle had to take over the family business when his older brother bailed. Yet, I never ever saw them fight or even have tension between them, even when I lived with them for a couple of months when I was 16. This was such a refreshing contrast from the constant strife my parents had at home, leading to divorce a couple of years later. I guess it helped that my uncle was a man of few words, who let my strong-willed, hard working and always upbeat aunt run the household as she wished. And she did just that, especially after my grandparents passed away.

This New Year will be the first one they will be apart in decades, since Uncle Isao passed away this earlier this year. I rather like to think of him sitting wherever he now, relaxing in his long underwear, with a haramaki (knitted tummy warmer) around his middle, chuckling quietly while sipping on a cool beer.

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