Do you know of any American distributers of Mochi?

Question:

I LOVE mochi after my friend's sister brought some back from South Korea. Do you know how an American lad can get his hands on some?

Answer:

Daifuku mochi just means filled mochi. It can be filled with anything you like! Mochi is the rice dough around the red bean paste. Mochi is also enjoyed other ways - cut into squares and steamed, or baked, or even cooked in a waffle iron!

If you have an Asian market in your town, you may be able to get frozen ones. If there is a Japanese or Korean bakery, they may make fresh ones. And you can almost certainly find the mochi treats filled with ice cream in any Asian market! You can also probably get either the bean paste ones or the ice cream filled ones for dessert at a Japanese or Korean restaurant.

It is not terribly hard to make your own, though.

Make the filling first, and have it ready before you begin the dough. Or buy premade sweet red bean paste. In Japanese, it is called anko.

For the dough, you need glutinous rice flour. You can find it in any Asian market. A popular brand is Mochiko.

There are lots of recipes online for making the dough. Most use microwaves. I don't have a microwave, so I used my rice cooker to cook the dough and it worked great.

Mix, steam, and cool the dough on a board with potato starch to prevent sticking. Then portion it out. Fill each piece with filling, and dust with something so it doesn't stick - powdered sugar, toasted glutinous rice flour, potato starch, or shredded coconut all work. Set seam side down on a plate and let cool and set completely. Then devour them all!


Bean paste filling recipe:

http://japanesefood.about.com/od/japanes…

Mochi recipe:

http://japanesefood.about.com/od/japanes…

And this last one is particularly good, and really explains how to do it!

http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives…

Good luck!