Mochi is a food prepared from rice and used as an ingredient in several 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).
Popular dishes with Mochi:
- Zoni, a soup containing rice cakes. Zoni is also eaten on New Year's Day. In addition to mochi, zoni 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 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.
- Mochi ice cream, small balls of ice cream wrapped inside a mochi covering. This is very popular in California.