pound it.

A couple weeks ago I was invited to a Japanese friend's house to make some "mochi". Now, if you are not familiar with mochi, you aren't missing much, well you could get into a great debate with a Japanese person over that because they love their mochi. After watching, learning and helping to make it I kinda like to think of myself as a professional mochi maker and should go on the road with this new found talent and love and have a mochi taco truck. I have to say it was a lot more fun to make than it is to eat. :)

Mochi is sticky rice that is steamed, then pounded out to make a sticky paste type flour substance (Mr. Atkins diet would have a heart attack.) and then that paste is pulled and stretched apart to make it into sticky balls (better than Schwedy balls) and either filled with sweet bean paste or put into sauce, soup, etc and so on. Mochi by itself doesn't have a real strong taste, actually not really a taste at all. like I said before...lots more fun to make than to eat. :)

here are some pics of our day making mochi...
The rice is in these wooden grates being steamed for hours:

Then the rice is "kneaded" to make it more paste like in this wooden bowl.

Then pounded into a pasty flour. Because it's so sticky there are two people working on it. One pounding and one throwing water on it after every hit so it won't stick to the hammer. art i tell you, art.
The professionals at it:

the sous' at it: (we don't look quite as graceful or don't think we helped at all in actually making progress on the mochi pounding but they were sweet enough to humor us and let us try.)
Chelsea:

Lacey:

Kay B:

Me:

Thought I'd go for the the "make loud grunting noises and maybe you'll impress them with your sound rather than your skill" technique.

....and then I hit their door with all that power...what can I say?...baby got back!

then we learned how to make them into the little ball pastries we are familiar with...the most common mochi on the market is filled with a sweet bean paste like we are learning here...

mochi, anyone?

sweet friend, Midori-san.

Midori and her husband and their very large radish from their garden. ha!

This day is going down in the books for one of the best in Japanese culture I have had yet. Thanks, Midori for a very sweet day, pound it!