(soft music) - Greetings my beautiful lovelies, it's Emmy, how are you? It's great to see you and welcome back and happy, happy New Year. Today I'm going to be making everything
mochi, mochi, mochi, mochi. I think when a lot of
people think of mochi they think of ice cream, that kind of sticky rice cake
with ice cream in the middle. Well, technically mochi is
just that rice cake itself. Mochi is made from
glutinous rice or sweet rice that has been steamed and cooked and traditionally it is pounded,
very laboriously pounded in a wooden kind of mortar and with these great, big wooden mallets. And traditionally this is served or eaten and made during New Year in Japan. I myself have never made it before. I've seen it made, it is intense
and beautiful and rhythmic and just a really cool thing
to watch and to see made. And I'm not gonna be making it that way. I am actually gonna be using
this beautiful mochi maker that I purchased and
super excited about this. I didn't even know they had these machines until relatively recently. And with the New Year coming up, I am going to be using and
christening this machine. So I'm certainly no expert when
it comes to things Japanese. I only lived there for a couple of years and only spent a couple of New Years there but it is a beautiful time of year. There's a lot of hustle and bustle right before the New Year, people are cleaning their homes and preparing food for New Year because during New Year's, everyone rests, everyone stays at home,
there's no cooking, everyone just kind of chills out. So there's a lot of food preparation that happens beforehand. It's called osechi ryori and these are the dishes and foods that are served and
eaten during New Year's so you don't have to cook, lots of different things including mochi. So mochi is basically
pounded, kneaded sweet rice that has this glorious chewy and bouncy and stretchy texture to it. It can be served both sweet and savory. And here is example of the rice
that you use to make mochi. This is mochigome, each
individual grain of rice, it's much rounder, it's
more opaque in color. And when cooked it has a
glorious sticky texture. So for the batch that I'm making today, I used the included cup and I measured five cups
of that into a bowl, washed it thoroughly, rinsed
it and rinsed it and rinsed it until the water ran clear. And then I put about two inches of clean filtered water on top and let that rest for at least
six hours up to overnight. It's really important for the grains of rice to get rehydrated so you get that really
great chewy texture. Incidentally, the rice I'll be using today comes from Koda Farms,
it's grown in California. It's a family-run business that's been in business since 1928. I believe they're third
generation farmers. The Koda family have been
through a lot in the 1940s. They had a thriving rice business, but then because of World War II, the entire family was interned and everything was wiped out from their business, everything. Once the war was over the family was able to
rebuild the business and have continued to
do so to this very day. So great story, beautiful rice. Here is my beautiful mochi maker. You need a very powerful choochee machine to knead this rice
because it is so sticky. So this machine has a lot of
torque. It's made by Tiger. It's made in Japan. I love these very kind of analog buttons. And from what I've heard from many of my lovelies
who own this machine, it should last me quite a long time. Here's the lid which we
can also use as a tray; operating instructions; they include a rolling
pin for rolling the mochi; this is the blade we'll be using today for kneading the rice; this is a steamer tray for
steaming other things -- if I wanna make other
things besides mochi. Here is the measuring cup -- it's important to use this specific cup and not a standard measuring cup when it comes to measuring the rice. They include another blade
which is pretty cool. And this is for making miso, but unfortunately, it does
not include any instructions on how to make miso, so if
you have any instructions, please send them my way because I would love to make
my own miso, would love to. And it also includes this kneading basket. Now we're gonna add two
measuring cups of water for the amount of rice
that I have soaked, two. Now we're gonna place this back. Make sure it's set in there. Here is my rice that I've been soaking and after I've soaked
it for several hours, I drained it for 1/2 an hour
to remove any excess water. Now we're gonna put this into the hopper, Oh, crap. You need this. Got a little too excited
and I forgot the blade. Put your blade on first. Okay, now put your rice in. Even at the top, we are just
gonna push the steam button and this will steam our rice, and when it's done, there'll be a buzzer and then we'll be ready to pound this. So yesterday I made a batch
of mochi using this machine. I did seven cups because I wanted to
make a version of mochi that I really, really love,
it's called kirimochi. Kirimochi is a firm version of mochi that you can store for quite a while and you can purchase it in this form. Like this and it comes in
blocks and it's very, very hard. It almost looks like an eraser, perfectly rectangular, smooth. It doesn't smell like much of anything but this stuff is magical. This is scored already,
so you can snap it. Look at that, isn't that beautiful? And you can break it up into four pieces and then you take this
and you can toast it. You can watch these puff up beautifully. It's like magic. I just love watching them. Each time I cook mochi,
I watch this happen because it's just so much fun. The water that's inside of
the mochi starts to heat up and steam and expand. And because the mochi is
made of glutinous rice, it has a really great
sticky, stretchy consistency. So it puffs up and
contains that heated steam and just inflates like a beautiful balloon which is great because
that then toasts up. So you get this kind of crunchy exterior. Inside you've got this really stretchy, gooey, chewy interior, fantastic. So I wanted to make my own
homemade version of kirimochi which I've never done. I did the same steps I
just showed you right now but I cooked seven cups because I wanted a little extra because we love kirimochi so much. So after the mochi was pounded, I divided the dough into two plastic bags. I saw this technique on a YouTube video, I'll put a link down below, and then I used included
rolling pin to roll it out into about a little less than 1/2 an inch. I cut tiny holes into the corners so it would allow the mochi to kind of push into the corners and then I refrigerated it. And listen to this. It's just completely firm,
completely rock-hard solid which is exactly what we want because now we're going to cut this. So there is the mochi. Now we're just gonna peel
this away from the plastic and we've got these kind
of like eraser packs. And then we're going to
toast these at 400 degrees until they puff up beautifully. Then we know that they're
nice and hot inside and then we're gonna gobble them up. (soft music) Okay my lovelies, my homemade kirimochi
has come out of the oven and looks great. Traditionally, this is served
with soy sauce or tsuyu. I like to use tsuyu
which is just soup base. This is great concentrated soup base that you can use to make dipping sauces for all kinds of noodles, you can use it to make somen, you can use it to make udon, great handy stuff to have around. I love it with my mochi. Put a little bit into my dish. Isn't that sweet? (laughs) Isn't that great? So this side is nice and sticky and this side has puffed up beautifully. Dip it into the dipping sauce and then wrap it in the seaweed and then "itadakimasu!" So good, so chewy and stretchy. It's almost like a taffy in your mouth. The tsuyu is salty yet
sweet and full of umami. And then you've got the crunch and the briny flavors of the seaweed. And then the mochi also has
a crispness to it as well. So good! Let me show you how stretchy the mochi is. Look at that: see how
stretchy and gooey it is? So great! And when you have mochi by
itself, it just tastes like rice: it's very, very plain. In my opinion, the homemade
version is superior than the store-bought. It has a chewier, stretchier texture. When the rice is done, we're
going to pound the fresh mochi and then I'll show you how you
can make little mochi cakes filled with bean paste or you can have it covered
with kinako powder. So I'll come back in a little bit and show you how to do that. (machine buzzing)
(laughs) I guess I'm back! I guess it's finished. So no need to come back, oh my God. What timing, comic timing. Thank you Tiger machine. That was hilarious. Okay, back to work. So now we're going to
push the last button, which is the pound button, and it's gonna turn that blade down below and make this into a really great dough. (laughs) Isn't that great? Look at that. Isn't that marvelous? (upbeat music) I would say 10 to 20 minutes depending on how big your batch is. You want this to be a nice, smooth, homogenous ball of dough. (upbeat music) I think we're about ready to shape this. You can use potato starch, out of potato starch
I'm using corn starch. So I've got some anko paste
which is just adzuki beans that have been sweetened with
sugar and have been mashed. This is a traditional filling for mochi. So this is very convenient because it comes pre-cooked
and sweetened for me and it's in a tin. There we go. Make sure to get our blade out of there. You can just use your hand and squeeze it and make a little ball of mochi. Tied off plain rice ball. This could be served in soups. It can be eaten plain. It can be had with soy sauce. So we can take it and stretch it and then just fill it
with some of our bean, stretch it to cover
and then pinch to seal. Roll it in your palm. How sweet is that? I should also mention that
eating pounded sticky rice is not unique to Japan. It can also be found in
China or in Southeast Asia where it is also eaten and enjoyed for its beautiful texture and its ability to take
on such wonderful flavors. All right, let's go ahead
and give one of these a taste while it's still warm. Alrighty, Happy New Year to you all. Mmm. (chuckles) Mm-hmm. It's just so wonderfully
chewy and stretchy and bouncy. And then you've got the
lightly sweetened anko paste and they're absolutely delicious. Alrighty my lovelies, there you have it. That's how you make homemade mochi. I had a lot of help with this machine. I'm so grateful for that machine and I'm so grateful for you. Thank you all so much for
being beautiful lovelies for allowing me to make videos,
to do this for a living. I'm just so ever so grateful and here's to wishing you
a great and wonderful 2021. Alrighty, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you enjoyed that one. I hope you learned something. Please share this video with your friends; follow me on social media;
like this video; subscribe; and I shall see you in the next one. Too-da-loo, take care, bye!! (orchestral music) (upbeat music) (burps) Ooh.
