Do you know Mochi, or sticky rice cake
made from glutinous rice. It has a very smooth and when heated, very sticky
texture. Mochi is most often consumed around New Year in Japan as part of tradition;
however, it is available in Japan from shops throughout the year (see Wikipedia
for more information -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi).
Shown here is the photo of traditional mochi-making from Pixabay!
Traditionally in an event called
Mochi-tsuki, you use a wooden heavy bowl/stage called Usu, and a wooden hammer
named Kine, to mix and beat steamed glutinous rice to make smooth-textured mochi.
I want Sticky Rice Cake for kids, a lot of it and for cheap!
My sons both really love mochi. If I
heat it up, they will eat them with a bit of soy sauce and nori seaweed for
breakfast, or snack. After all, mochi is simply made from rice and nothing more.
So it is fat-free, no added sugar, gluten free….. It is a healthy snack.
But now we are living in NZ, we can only
find them at Japan Mart… For a bag of 450g mochi, it cost around 10 dollars. I
am grateful for Japan Mart for selling it in the first place, but if I can be a
bit fussier, I would love to get fresher mochi, in a more cost-effective way.
Making Mochi with a Bread Maker
Good news is, you don’t need traditional
Usu and Kine to make mochi. You can actually have all the work done by a modern
bread maker! I used a bread maker back in Japan to make fresh own-made mochi,
and they were very delicious!
So first step in making mochi at our new
home in NZ, is to get a bread maker that can be used. (And don’t attempt to
make it by hand. It is possible, however will be too exhausting….)
For using a bread maker to make mochi,
there are two options. First is to get a bread maker that has a mochi making
function, or “sticky rice cake” menu. This menu will cook and mix mochi rice at
the same time to produce mochi in just one step. Back in Japan, many of bread
makers sold there came with this function.
If you don’t have a bread maker with a mochi
making function, you will be using the “dough making menu” of the bread maker,
in combination with another kitchen appliance to cook rice.
Basically, you will cook rice using rice
cooker, and while rice is steaming hot, transfer them to bread maker to “dough”.
There are number of success stories using this method on the internet, so if
you have a bread maker without mochi making function, you can try this second method.
Purchasing a Bread Maker!!
So I first looked for a bread maker that
at least can make bread dough, ideally for cheap price.
I was actually searching around for a
good sale for a few months…. Then eventually settled with buying one from the
online shop 1day (https://www.1-day.co.nz/)
, which was selling a bread maker from Sheffield. This is it!
Sheffield
Bread Maker
It seems quite a cheap model to start
with, I have seen the same model on Trademe for about 60 dollars. This time
they were selling it for 39 dollars +delivery, so I was convinced that this is
the bottom price for a new bread maker! Even if it is a bit cheap-built,
I will be happy for the price!
Waiting
for about a week after purchasing it online, it finally arrived to our home…. I
could not find much information about this product prior to purchasing, but I
was pleasantly surprised when it arrived….
Menu no.17 says “Sticky Rice”! This must
be the Mochi-making function I was hoping that a bread maker would have ??
I quickly pulled out the instruction
manual and had a read, but in a very short sentence, it says no 17 menu“cook sticky rice without burning”….
It doesn’t say anything about mixing and
making sticky rice cake. But there is no need for a bread maker to just “cook”
rice (we have rice cooker to do that!), so… this must be mocha making function.
I tried selecting to the menu no.17, and
the duration of this program was one hour and 12 minutes, quite similar to the
bread maker I was using to make mocha in Japan (mocha function was about one
hour and 17 minutes then). I am convinced this is the right program!
So unexpectedly I got a cheap bread
maker perfectly suited to make mochi with sticky rice function. Next is getting
the right ingredient. Mochi rice….
To be continued… to part 2
