Selfmade Yakimochi (Grilled Mochi With Soy Sauce & Nori) Recipe

Yearly, just a few days after Christmas, some households in Japan collect to have fun Shogatsu, the Japanese New 12 months, by pounding sizzling, steamy rice into mochi. Utilizing a big wood mallet known as a kine, they take turns hitting the steamed grains in a one-meter diameter usu (mortar) carved from a tree stump, rhythmically turning the rice by hand between strikes, till the rice transforms right into a easy, sticky dough. “It’s a household affair,” says Nancy Singleton Hachisu, who has resided in rural Japan since 1988 and is the James Beard Award-winning creator of Japanese Farm Meals and Preserving the Japanese Means. “Mochitsuki is a time for neighborhood and gathering.”

What Is Conventional Mochi? Why Ought to You Make It?

Smooth, chewy, and sticky, mochi is a rice cake that  could be served in a large number of how: grilled, boiled, wrapped round anko (pink bean paste), dipped in kinako (roasted soybean flour), and even deep fried. Its title, “mochi,” comes from mochi gome, the kind of short-grain glutinous rice it’s produced from.

Mochitsuki (mochi pounding) is a practice courting again to no less than the eighth century, with origins going again a lot farther to historical China. All through historical past, mochi has held cultural significance for a number of events, from celebrating the New 12 months to childbirth and marriage, however by far the most typical time for making and consuming mochi is throughout Shogatsu.

For a lot of, the notion of mochi evokes multicolored shapes (fruits, even animals) and molded confections standard in Japanese comfort shops and sweet outlets. For a lot of extra, mochi is likely to be most carefully related to ice cream. However Hachisu is fast to level out that these meals are sometimes not made with mochi in probably the most conventional sense. “These [confections] are the furthest factor from mochi,” she says. “It doesn’t style the identical, as a result of it’s produced from mochiko flour—not from freshly steamed rice.” The overwhelming majority of mochi you discover commercially just isn’t hand-pounded.

Fashionable meals processing has made it potential to combine mochi at dwelling from a superb, boxed powder or flour. You combine mochiko (or shiratamako) with water, prepare dinner it over the stovetop or microwave, and growth—mochi on the fly. However all that comfort comes at a value. “That stuff is just about flavorless compared,” Hachisu says. There’s nothing improper with it. But it surely lacks just a few issues: taste and texture, and in a extra sentimental sense, the sentiments of custom, course of, gathering, and neighborhood which make mochi such a particular meals within the first place.

The Problem of (and Resolution to) Making Pounded Mochi at Residence

Growing a pounded mochi recipe for the house prepare dinner presents a number of challenges. For one, I’m fairly certain most individuals don’t personal both an usu or a kine. Second, mochitsuki is historically carried out open air or in a big, open space with loads of room to swing a giant outdated mallet. “You’re by no means gonna have the ability to do it at dwelling,” Hachisu says. No less than, not within the conventional manner.

Third, there’s the communal side of constructing mochi. “Ideally, you’d make mochi with your loved ones, or with pals, with individuals within the neighborhood,” Hachisu says. “The concept of neighborhood is so important to creating mochi.”

Whereas I can’t essentially remedy these points—in spite of everything, recipes are usually written for a single consumer, and we recipe builders are usually loner varieties to start with, faffing round with culinary trivia—I thought of just a few alternate options to the standard pounding course of.

• Massive Mortar and Pestle: A mortar and pestle appeared an apparent alternative to duplicate the pounding and kneading of mochitsuki. I had satisfactory outcomes with small volumes of rice, however the yields have been pitiful; a typical mortar merely doesn’t have sufficient capability. And due to that small capability, the rice tended to chill down too rapidly earlier than forming a cohesive, easy paste. The fast cooling made pounding prohibitively tough because the paste thickened. This methodology took upwards of quarter-hour for a cup of dry rice, and the outcome was grainy and unappealing.
• Mochi-Making Machine: For these intent on commonly having fun with pounded mochi at dwelling, you should purchase devoted mochi-making machines from respected rice cooker corporations like Zojirushi and Tiger. Marketed as all-in-one rice cooking and mochi-making units, these machines set you again wherever from 200 to 500 {dollars}. Whereas I used to be tempted to strive these machines out, I concluded that almost all dwelling cooks wouldn’t be prepared to drop that form of cash for such a specialised piece of apparatus.
• Stand Mixer: After I urged utilizing a stand mixer to duplicate the pounding and kneading course of, Hachisu was skeptical. “, I had a type of KitchenAid stand mixers as soon as. I’m fairly certain I threw it out,” she joked. In her estimation, the mochi dough would possibly overwhelm the mixer, burning the motor out. “I’m unsure that it could work,” she mentioned. “However I’ve additionally by no means tried it. So be happy to show me improper.”

The stand mixer does, the truth is, work. Utilizing a mixture of the dough hook and the paddle attachments yielded the most effective outcomes. The dough hook achieved the preliminary kneading and helped to type a cohesive mass; whipping the dough with the paddle attachment broke the grains additional aside, yielding a smoother outcome. And the most effective half? The work could be carried out rapidly whereas the rice retains its warmth.

There are nonetheless limitations to this methodology. In comparison with the feel of store-bought mochi or mochi made the standard manner, the ensuing dough isn’t completely easy—simply ever-so-slightly grainy should you maintain a cross-section as much as the sunshine. However when it comes to consuming high quality and the dealing with of the dough, that graininess is imperceptible. Moreover, I discovered that there was an higher restrict on the amount of rice my 7-quart KitchenAid mixer may deal with—round 3 cups of dry rice. So relying on the mannequin and capability of your stand mixer, your mileage could range. 

Different Keys To Mochi Success

Sort of Rice

Good mochi begins with choosing the right rice selection and high quality. For one, mochi gome, or short-grain japonica glutinous rice, is important. Glutinous rice is almost 100% amylopectin, considered one of two important polysaccharides present in starch, together with amylose. Amylopectin tends to type a sticky, viscous however flowing gel. Larger amylose rice varieties, equivalent to jasmine rice, will not be appropriate for making mochi, since they don’t type a sticky gel when blitzed aside or pounded.

Rice Cooking Strategies

The standard methodology for cooking rice is twofold: the rice is first soaked in a single day in water, then it’s wrapped in muslin fabric and steamed for about an hour beneath a heavy wood lid over an iron pot of water till the grains are tender. Soaking ensures that the rice cooks evenly when steamed, and a few research counsel that it reduces the protein content of the rice and likewise improves each shine and consuming high quality.

I attempted to duplicate this steaming methodology with cheesecloth and both a bamboo steamer or a heavy-lidded Dutch oven. Whereas the Dutch oven produced good outcomes outcomes, it was a finickier course of that required having to persistently test the grains by opening up the cheesecloth. The bamboo steamer, then again, didn’t produce evenly cooked grains, and tended to stain the grains barely brown.

Hachisu additionally really useful utilizing a rice cooker (with out soaking the grains beforehand)—although that is removed from a standard method. This gave me constant outcomes, so I may actually dial the ratio of water to rice to imitate the feel of correctly steamed rice. I used to be curious if omitting the soaking step affected the feel and look of the dough, however I discovered the variations too minute to inform. If you happen to’re a purist, follow steaming. In any other case, rice ready in a rice cooker works simply superb.

Warmth

One other basic side of mochitsuki entails sustaining warmth whereas pounding the rice. If the rice cools an excessive amount of earlier than the paste reaches the goal consistency, then pounding turns into more and more tough, and the completed texture isn’t preferrred. It’s additionally a ache to deal with the dough when it’s chilly, so the blending, pounding, or kneading should be carried out rapidly. “It’s a race towards time,” says Hachisu.

Happily, the stand mixer does the heavy lifting right here. However to keep up the temperature of the dough, I discovered it useful to maintain a inflexible silicone spatula dipped in boiling water close by. That sizzling, moist spatula made it simple to scrape down the perimeters of the bowl and fold the dough over itself, mimicking the motions of folding by hand.

Rolling, Shaping, and Katakuriko

As soon as the mochi is blended, it’s often shaped into shapes and eaten straight away. It doesn’t matter what type mochi takes, it’s customary to coat the work floor with katakuriko (potato starch). In truth, with out potato starch, the mochi dough is almost not possible to deal with due to how sticky it’s. A liberal dusting of katakuriko makes portioning, rolling, or urgent a comparatively painless endeavor.

Drying

For the precise model of mochi known as yakimochi (grilled mochi) proven on this recipe, it’s useful to dry the mochi earlier than slicing and cooking. These reduce squares, referred to as kirimochi, are sometimes offered commercially in vacuum sealed packs. The drying course of varieties a pores and skin on the floor of the mochi, which permits the mochi to puff up dramatically over the grill or when toasted. The result’s a crispy, crunchy exterior that provides strategy to a mushy, chewy inside.

Serving Solutions

There isn’t any scarcity of serving choices for mochi. Whereas this recipe produces a mochi dough appropriate for enrobing or rolling into varied shapes, I wished to supply mochi in its extra unadorned type. “My favourite strategy to eat mochi is simply toasted within the oven, perhaps brushed with a bit soy sauce,” says Hachisu. “Mochi is all concerning the rice, that delicate taste.”

Ideally, yakimochi are cooked on a Japanese grill known as a konro, ideally over binchotan coals. To duplicate this at dwelling, I go for the strategic use of a blowtorch to get these charred, smoky edges and encourage the mochi to puff on all sides (if you do not have a blowtorch, you should utilize a broiler, although will probably be tougher to get even browning). The grilled mochi are brushed with a easy tare thickened with potato starch, wrapped in nori, and eaten sizzling—a serving model referred to as isobeyaki.

If you happen to don’t have a grill or a blowtorch, a toaster oven (or an oven) is your subsequent best choice. The broiler setting produces an analogous impact as a grill, albeit with much less pronounced blistering or charring.

If you happen to want sweeter choices, you may drizzle the mochi with brown sugar syrup and serve it with some kinako (roasted soybean powder) or with globs of anko (pink adzuki bean paste).

Persevering with Traditions

A number of years in the past, Hachisu stumbled upon individuals making mochi whereas touring via an airport. “It was most likely a PR occasion,” she says. They wore gaudy, extravagant Japanese costumes, which have been faux. They have been shouting in a touristy, obnoxious manner. “It was form of sickening, to be sincere. That’s not mochi.”

However throughout Japan, there are enclaves of individuals carrying on the true traditions of mochitsuki, largely in rural areas. “There are many younger individuals who come to our farming space, looking for a extra pure life,” says Hachisu. They be taught the custom, revive it, and carry it on. Past the motion itself, mochitsuki is about neighborhood and gathering.

How do you carry that feeling to your property? Hachisu recommends inviting pals over to make mochi—even should you occur to be utilizing a stand mixer, with no usu or kine in sight. And should you can’t collect? You would possibly as properly share. As we wrap up our interview, Hachisu remembers to ship a bit mochi to her son who’s moved throughout the ocean to Brooklyn—so he can get pleasure from a bit style of dwelling.