Keep doing this until the water is clear and then drain the rice using a strainer. Refill the bowl again and repeat the rinsing motion. Rinse the rice in a swirling motion and drain most of the water. Alternatively, you can put the rice in a bowl and fill it halfway with rice. Put the rice in a rice washing bowl and rinse under running water until the water runs clear.Tall cup (I use the one that came with my immersion blender).Rice washing bowl (optional but very useful).Tools Needed to Make Mochi in a Microwave

I often swap one for the other since they are very similar so go ahead and use cornstarch if you cannot find potato starch or already have cornstarch in your pantry. Potato starch: While Chinese cuisine often calls for cornstarch, you will find that potato starch is the preferred starch for Japanese cooking.Water: It took me a while to figure out the right ratio of water to rice but it was worth the effort! 425ml is just the right amount to give the mochi a stretchy, chewy texture that’s not too dry or too loose.Make sure you get the short grain kind as there are other types of glutinous rice such as Thai or Vietnamese sticky rice, which are longer and thinner. Mochigome rice: Mochigome rice is Japonica short grain sweet rice.You can also purchase different types of mochi such as rice cakes, daifuku, or mochi ice cream, on Amazon. If you don’t feel like making mochi from scratch but crave the chewiness (I’ve been there many times!), you can buy mochi in most Asian supermarkets and Japanese grocery stores. You can also order mochigome on Amazon or other online supermarkets selling Asian food. Just look for the words short grain sweet rice on the package. You can find it in Japanese grocery stores and other Asian supermarkets. This confection is called sakura mochi (sakura is the Japanese word for cherry blossom). In the springtime, mochi is dyed pink to represent the arrival of cherry blossoms, and is stuffed with anko (sweet red bean paste). Mochi is a traditional Japanese food that’s served on New Year’s Day in ozoni and also used as a New Year decoration (kagami mochi) to represent good luck and good fortune. It can be served as a traditional Japanese confection called wagashi, stuffed with sweet red bean paste (called daifuku) , with kinako (sweet soybean flour), stuffed with ice cream, added to soups, or brushed with a little soy sauce, toasted over a grill, and wrapped in seaweed (called isobemaki). The texture is chewy and the flavor slightly sweet. Once pounded, the rice is molded into a ball, rectangle, or other shape. Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of Japonica glutinous rice, called mochigome (糯米), that’s been cooked and pounded into a sticky paste. It was an experience I’ll never forget because it brought me so close to my relatives and my Japanese roots. We made so much mochi that day that the entire living room floor, which was covered with bed sheets, was filled with rice cakes! My aunt packed a few mochis for everyone to take home that day, which my mother used to make ozoni the next. All the men took a turn pounding and turning the rice until it slowly turned into a chewy dough. It was such a fun and interesting process watching one person pound the rice while the other was in charge of turning it. The men were outside pounding freshly cooked mochigome (short grain sweet rice) using a large mortar called usu (碓), and a wooden mallet called kine (杵), while the women stayed indoors, shaping the mochi into perfectly uniform balls It was New Year’s Day and my whole family gathered at my uncle Nori and aunt Fumiko’s place for mochitsuki ((餅つき), which is a traditional mochi making ceremony to celebrate the arrival of the new year. The only other time I saw it made from scratch was in Japan and let me tell you – it was not an easy process! Never in my life did I imagine I would be able to make mochi using a microwave. I’m so happy to share this recipe with you today because I’m a huge fan of mochi! Making this mochi recipe at home is so easy that you won’t believe it until you make it! All you need is an immersion blender and a microwave to make these chewy Japanese rice cakes.

Mochi maker