A tale of two mochis

It was the best of mochi, and the worst of mochi. First off, no photos. Sorry. I know, it would be better if I had pics, but hey, the camera didn't want to work. Anyhow, on with the story. Earlier in the week or maybe a couple weeks back, I found this YouTube video showing a lady making red bean mochi. That got my mochi senses tingling, and started me down a path that will probably add an additional 5 pounds to my already overweight (according to Wii Fit Plus) frame.

Mochi 1: Butter Mochi

First off, this is the winner. Here is the recipe I used. I had made this a couple years back, and it's great stuff. Came out pretty good this time, too, except it was a tad bland. My fault, not enough butter. I ended tossing the cut pieces in powered sugar. They were very good thereafter, I took a mostly full pan to church (you can guess how it went from full to mostly full) and it got wolfed. This is a good mochi. Can't go wrong with butter mochi.

Mochi 2: Red bean mochi

To be fair, I have never made red bean mochi. I have never made mochi in a microwave oven. Here is a link to the YouTube vid I went by for instructions. I should have known this would go badly, as I was unable to locate red bean paste at my favorite haunt, Red Apple. I ended up finding some at New Sagaya, although I really didn't like that the metal can showed an expiration date of May 2010. Whatever. I went by the instructions in the YouTube video, but did leave out the salt. I wonder if that mattered? But anyhow, forget the salt. Well, if you watch the YT vid, you'll see the woman roll out the cooked mochi on a cutting board dusted with cornstarch. Let me tell you what, that cooked mochi dough ends up being a gooey stickey glob. Difficult to work with. The red bean paste was almost too dried out, it had pulled away from the walls of the can, what with being so old and all. Tasted fine, though. The YT vid shows making eight mochi, but I think it could have made 10. Either that or increase the amount of red bean paste used from 3/4 cup to 1 cup. Well, here's the deal: I got 'em made, but the cornstarch ended up clumping on the outside in big unattractive lumps. I have no idea now folks manage to get that perfect dusting of cornstarch on the outside of the mochi. I guess practice it is. Now as to the taste, well, the stuff was so gooey it was coming apart in my hand and getting stuck to each fingertip. Gooey. And bland. Needed more sugar maybe. The red bean filling was fine. But that cornstarch, oh, biting into a dry wad of cornstarch is about as appealing as eating raw dry flour. It ain't. So this is not a mochi I'd be taking to church, unless folks were going to pray for it to be healed. I'll see if it's better tomorrow, but it was not the "hot fresh mochi" experience I was hoping for.

So that's the tale of two mochis.