Hello, everybody! How are you?
It is already Dec.17th, only 2 weeks are left in this year!
December is the busiest time in Japan. We have old Japanese word for each month. And the Kanji, Chinese character meaning for December is “The month even the mentor run” 😀
There are so many things to prepare to have a traditional Japanese new year, one of my nice memories with my grandmother is making rice cake.
Mochi, the rice cake is one of the symbolic foods for new year.
I see many customers asking for Mochigome ( rice for the rice cake) lately at Michi no Eki Aso.
Have you ever eaten rice cake before?
Did you know that rice for the rice cake is different from regular rice?
Here is the Mochigome ( rice for the rice cake).
It is whiter than regular rice and also it gets a lot stickier.
To make Mochi, rice cake, you will steam the rice at first. Then pound them with special bowl and pounder. It sticks easily to the pounder so we need somebody (most of the time it’s experienced lady) can add a bit water and turn the mochi in between.
It is a lot of work to prepare those tools, but it is really fun to watch the professionals (?) pound the rice to mochi , pound, turn, pound,
turn, it is so rhythmical.
Well, here is a picture my boy enjoyed Mochi event at his kindergarten 2 years ago.
We couldn’t do this last season because of covid-19, I hope we can do it again in this winter.
The mochi made with rice and water from Aso must be good. Look at him 😀 The sweet bean paste (anko) inside of mochi is also from Aso. He looked so happy.
It is nice to pound mochi in traditonal way but it is not so practical to prepare all these tools, then now days they have electric mochi cooker. It does the steaming and pounding automatically. I am looking at them every time I go to store… The mochi just cooked is sooooo good.
Well, Mochi is quite flexible for cooking. You can cut them into chunks and put them into the soup, or even you can use them as a topping of pizza. Mochi is easy to be digested, so it is a good food for your breakfast, it will keep your body warm.Perfect winter food!
Michi no Eki Aso sells plain Mochi which you can use for cooking.
And also there are many Mochi Sweets.
So many different flavors and they are all yummy !! They are favorite snacks of my kids…and me, and my husband,yes for sure…. If you are interested in Mochi made in Aso, please come by Michi no Eki Aso😊
Kana
