…. is mochi.
Go ahead, Google it. You’ll get desserts…cookbooks…recipes for banana bread and cupcakes…and you’ll get all sorts of cartoons and tiny little knitted things.
We tried this several weeks ago when I purchased a flat sheet of the brown stuff. Turns out this is DRIED mochi. We hacked it up into little squares and baked it. It puffed up and the inside was airy and chewy and the outside was a little crispy. We liked it plain but I thought it could use some butter and salt.
GASP!! Did I say butter? Well, maybe I should have said “fake butter” which is what my husband and I refer to vegan foods in our house. I’ve used the word “fake” for many years to refer to things that I didn’t make from scratch…box mixed cakes, et al. Now we have a whole new realm of “fakeness” … vegan products. Anyway I thought the baked mochi needed some butter and salt even if it was vegan butter, it needed something. OR cinnamon and sugar (of course it would have to be vegan approved sugar, not the white stuff that is near and dear to my heart because of bone char or some sort of thing like that).
It’s only been a few months and I already know way too much about this subject of vegan eating, than I ever EVER wanted to know.
So this is the mochi I’m familiar with… Grainaissance mochi
I just don’t understand this stuff. I’ve been cooking for many years. I love cooking new things. But this stuff intrigues me. I can make it by following the “traditional” method. This seems a little laborious for me. Or I can make it at home as demonstrated by this (and many other) videos on YouTube. There’s also a microwave version which was posted in Columbia University’s Columbia Daily Spectator on October 19, 2009.
In any event, I am befuddled. It’s like I’ve discovered a new animal/creature and don’t know what to name it or what to do with it.
I am off to B&N… they have a couple of books on the subject, cookbooks that is, and I just want to poke through a few of them to get some sort of handle on it.
Wish me luck.
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