Playing With Mochi

Sorry again for the decline in posting. I'm home for a bit so I'll be bombarding you with all things delicious.

What the heck are those? Bars of soap? I thought you were supposed to be writing about food? Oh, you. They're blocks of mochi, which I mentioned in this post. Here's the story. I was talking to my Japanese teacher about where to find mochi nearby. She couldn't think of any places, but said she had some at her house she would give me. "Are you sure you know what it is?" she asked incredulously. "Do you like it?" I nodded eagerly. Finally some mochi!

When she handed me the bag, I had to admit, it didn't look like the mochi I'd had before. But when I got back to my room, I eagerly bit into one of the blocks. "Blehhhh!" I whined, spitting out what tasted like bits of candle wax.

I told my teacher what happened, and she seemed horrified. Apparently you're supposed to boil or bake mochi before eating it. That makes more sense. I tried to boil the first block a few months ago, and put chocolate chips on top. It was decent. This time, I wanted to cook them in a pan until they got all bubbly looking, and serve them with the traditional nori and soy sauce. But then I tasted nori and decided it was gross. So I put honey on one, and whipped cream and chocolate syrup on another.

The end result was crispy on the outside and super sticky chewy on the inside. Gotta be careful with this stuff. Apparently a handful of people choke on it and die every year. It's a bit of an acquired taste, but I really enjoy it. Now to figure out how to use that last block...