Mochi is prepared from rice and used as an ingredient in other Japanese recipes.
How to cook Mochi:
- Prepare steamed glutinous rice,
- Pound it in a mortar, and
- Form it into various shapes (Usually a circle or square).
Completed!!!
Most Japanese people eat Mochi on New Year's Day and they love it. Mochi is very sticky, so be careful to keep it from getting stuck in your throat.
Popular dishes with Mochi:
- Zoni, a soup containing rice cakes. Zoni is eaten on New Years Day. Zoni also contains vegetables like honeywort, carrot, and red and white colored boiled fish sausage.
- Yaki-Mochi, a grilled rice cake. After the rice cake is grilled, put soy sauce and wrap a toasted laver (nori) around the grilled rice cake.
- Shiruko, a sweet adzuki (red-bean) soup with pieces of rice cake. In winter, Japanese people often eat it to warm themselves.
- Daifuku, a soft rice cake stuffed with sweetened bean jam.