O-mochi

I joined forces with my mother and sister-in-law to make the annual supply of o-mochi and manju, pounded sticky rice filled with sweet beans. When we had more manpower, we would haul out the stone mortar, a granite pillar standing about 3 feet high with a deep bowl carved in the top. The steamed rice would be placed in the bowl to be pounded with a long handled wooden mallet. However, without the menfolk to participate, we women used a mochi machine, something akin to a bread kneader, to beat the rice into a sticky mass.

Just because we used an electric kneader doesn't mean we were all high tech - no, we still used newspapers. I don't know what it is with newspapers and my in-laws but it does seem that we can't prepare a meal without them. We also took out the very old wooden trays - dating back at least three generations, maybe more- which are much better than plastic for holding the hot mochi. As we were making it, we kept eating the mis-shapen balls and by the end of the morning, we were stuffed.

The process: soak mochigome rice(also known as glutinous rice = sticky rice = sushi rice = sweet rice = mochi rice or pearl rice although it does not contain gluten nor is it sweet; the grains are small, almost round and when steamed, stick together) and drain well; steam the rice and several slices of sweet potato in a bamboo steamer until soft; pound the mixture, with a couple spoons of sugar and a small spoon of salt until it forms a glutenous mass (the potato & sugar prevent the mochi from becoming too hard during storage); prepare a workspace with lots of corn starch (or potato starch) and shape into smaller mounds, some may be filled with anko. (Anko is made ahead of time by cooking azuki beans and sugar and processing it into a smooth thick paste.)

The large rounds of omochi will be used to decorate the altar for the New Year and two small rounds are used for desktop or workspace decorations- this is called kagamimochi. These become dry and get hard but can be broken into bits for eating in soup later on. The others are for eating. A red food coloring is sometimes added to make pink color but we had purple sweet potatoes that gave a nice purple color to some of the batches.

My Favorite o-mochi: I like the plain mochi either roasted in a fire or microwaved until it poofs up, slathered in butter, soybean powder (kinako) and raw black sugar. I tell myself it is healthy because of the soy protein!