Our friends, the Pagaragan family, have a tradition every New Year to make a big batch of mochi, then freeze and eat through the year. They invited friends over to share in the festivities. They have a mochi maker. It steams the rice, then pounds and pummels it into a rice paste. This is waaaaayyyy easier than the traditional method.
Our family love mochi and were thrilled to be invited to actually make some. We were surprised to discover that we were going to eat it with some savory options. We had only had it as a sweet dessert, so this was a new experience for us.
One of the ways was serving it within a soup. Here, you can see the mochi being boiled, like a dumpling, then will be added to the broth based soup next to it.
Writing the menu on the doors, both in english and japanese…
The big family dining table is laden with rice flour and everyone shapes the mochi…
Enjoying the yummy soup…
When mochi is placed in a toaster oven, it puffs up like a puff pastry. Served with soys sauce and some other condiment…