It’s ‘mochi’ less complicated than you think: Conventional Taiwanese mochi recipe

A pair of months ago, I uncovered myself atop a misty mountain in Taiwan, looking at in awe as steamed sticky rice turned into sensitive mochi. Retail store-acquired mochi is usually made from machines, which gives it that easy, even and velvety regularity. I discovered, even so, that building your possess mochi from scratch gives it a a little coarser but extra flavorful and hearty texture. It’s also much easier than it would seem! Conventional Taiwanese mochi only needs sweet sticky rice, a bit of heat water and a complete large amount of power. If you are on the lookout for a tasty experiment or an arm training, browse on for the recipe!

Ingredients 

Peanut toppings (optional)

• ½ cup roasted unsalted peanuts 
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Mochi

• 1 cup sweet sticky rice or millet rice 

Directions

Peanut toppings (optional)

1. Pour peanuts into a blender and pulse for 5 seconds. The peanuts won’t be finely ground nevertheless. 
2. Use a spoon or rubber spatula to scrape the peanut bits from the sides and pulse for an additional 5 seconds. Scrape the sides once again. 
3. If you’re pleased with the regularity of the peanut powder, eliminate it from the blender. If not, pulse for an additional spherical. Be mindful not to overdo it, or the warmth from pulsing will switch the peanuts oily and damp. 
4. Get rid of peanut powder from the blender, and let it to interesting. 
5. Add sugar to the peanut powder and blend thoroughly. Established the peanut toppings aside.

Mochi

1. Soak the rice in h2o for at the very least 4 several hours. 
2. Drain the rice, and area it in a bamboo steamer lined with parchment paper. Steam for 30 minutes, or until finally rice is comfortable and translucent. If you really do not have a steamer, you can use other approaches to steam the sticky rice. 
3. As soon as cooked, place the rice in a wood mortar. Damp the wood pestle with some heat h2o and begin pounding the sticky rice. Indigenous Taiwanese people today use a substantial picket pestle and mortar to pound and twist the sticky rice into mochi even so, a scaled-down 1 performs much too! Just be thorough not to put much too a lot rice in at as soon as if you are performing with smaller applications. 
4. Maintain grinding and doing the job at the rice until finally it starts off to look like mochi. Note: This will acquire a great deal of pounding. Really don’t despair if it will take more time than you assume!
5. As soon as your rice has turn out to be mochi, twist the dough in opposition to the pestle to remove it from the mortar in a person clump. 
6. Split the mochi dough into scaled-down chunk-sized parts, roll in peanut combination (if making use of) and love! 

And there you have it! Who realized earning mochi could be so uncomplicated — all the arm work aside, of program. This mochi recipe is simple and functional. If you’re not sensation the common peanut topping, you can also roll the mochi in a sugary black sesame combination, wrap it all-around a purple bean paste or even just drizzle it with honey. The mixtures of sugary delight are limitless. Content mochi making!

Speak to Kristie Lin at [email protected].