[POUNDING] Should I hold the table? Should we-- is this like
a trading places moment? I'll hold the table. Is there any props
that you need? [LAUGHTER] Hey, there. I'm Sohla El-Waylly, and this
is "Ancient Recipes with Sohla." In each episode, we're going to
take a dish you may recognize and attempt to recreate one
of the oldest versions of it to ever exist. It's a little history,
it's a little cooking, and it's a whole lot of me. What's not to love? [MUSIC PLAYING] In this episode, we're going
to make the secret power food of the samurai-- [GONG] --mochi. Yeah. You heard me right. I know we all know
mochi ice cream, but mochi has been a staple
Japanese food for millennia, with many different fillings. We're going to try and
make a version of mochi that's as close as
possible to what the samurai would have eaten. And then we're also
going to make daifuku, a red-bean-paste-filled version
that came around in the 1700s. So we're going to jump
through a couple of eras, and we're going to
have a good time. So let's get started. So the most basic,
traditional mochi, the one that the
samurais ate, was just made with mochigome rice. That is it. So we're just going to soak
this, steam it, and pound it. That's it. That's all you need for mochi. Now, for the daifuku,
we're going to fill that with a bean paste called anko. So for that, we've
got these azuki beans. We're going to cook
them until they're totally tender because we
want a nice, soft paste. And then we're going to
sweeten it up with a little bit of rock sugar. It's very fun to use. It's used in a lot
of Chinese cooking. It's going to be
almost like equal parts rock sugar and beans, and
you're going to be like, whoa. It's a very simple recipe. This is going to be all
about the smashing-- [THUD]
--the pounding-- [THUD] --the technique. [MUSIC PLAYING] So our rice and beans
have been soaked. I'm going to get
the rice to steam. So I've got a wok
here, and I'm going to set this bamboo
steamer on top and line it with
some cheesecloth. So if you haven't
made a lot of rice, or you've had some
bad rice experiences, this is probably the easiest
way to make rice because it's pretty much fool-proof. You just soak the rice. Six hours is good. You can do it up to overnight. The longer you soak it, the
softer the rice is going to be. So for mochi, it's good
to soak it overnight. We soaked this overnight so
it's going to be easy for me to pound. But you soak it
and then you steam. There's no measuring. There's no ratio to remember. And then you just have
perfect rice every time. This is actually a
Chinese-style steaming basket. Back then, they would have used
square, box-style steamers that were stacked on top of a pot. But nowadays, most
people, even in Japan, use a wok like this because
it's pretty convenient. It's really easy. It just sits right there. We're going to get that
going, and that's going to go for about 30 to 45 minutes. We want to make sure the
rice is really tender so it's easy to smash. [THUD] OK. Now we're going to
get our beans cooking. So these beans have been
soaked as well, so it cooks for us a little bit faster. But just like with any bean,
if you forgot to soak it, that's fine. It's just going to
take longer to cook. So these have been soaked. It's probably only going to
take one to two hours to cook. Beans, it really depends on
how old or fresh they are. So I'm going to
cover this with water and I'm just going
to let it simmer. And I'm just going
to come back to it every few minutes, see if it
needs another splash of water. We want to let this cook
until it's totally tender. [WHOOSH] We're not looking
for an al dente bean. Very, very, tender,
but still intact. The main thing is, don't let
it go to like a rapid boil, because that's when
your beans can burst. I'm going to let that hang out. Next, I'm going to crush
up some rock sugar. This is what they would
have traditionally used to sweeten up the anko. Rock sugar is made
from refined sugar, so it still is-- it
doesn't have flavor, like a molasses-y flavor
or anything like that, but it's just kind
of fun to use. And I'm going to
crush it up in this. This is a molcajete. This is not a Japanese-style
mortar and pestle. This is the one we've got. There's actually a ton
of different mortar and pestles all across the
world with different names, slightly different shapes, but
they all do the same thing. You smash something
with something. [BOOM] So it's going to
do the job for us. So I'm going to crush
off this rock sugar. We don't need it
to be super fine. We're just breaking it up so it
dissolves quickly in our anko. So smash, smash. [POUNDING] Today, the theme of
this episode is smash. There's so much smash happening. Oh, gosh. (LAUGHING) So in feudal Japan, they
would actually-- farmers would eat mochi as like a snack. Oh, it's getting everywhere. [BEEP] So in feudal Japan,
farmers would eat mochi as a snack in the fields. And samurai-- it's said that
samurais would have mochi as a snack, like a
pre-battle snack to fuel up on the sugar and the carbs. There's a saying
that you don't want to hear a snacking samarai. Like, that's bad news-- [MUSIC PLAYING] --that's when they're
coming for you. [MUSIC PLAYING] But we didn't find
any evidence for that, but it's a really fun story. I like it. But I think that there's
no evidence for it, because you wouldn't hear a
samurai snacking on mochi. Like, mochi's the perfect
battle food because it's quiet. [WHOOSH] Silent. [WHOOSH] You could probably like
duck down in a corner, eat some mochi mid-battle. No one would even notice. [WHOOSH] And actually, samurais were
also mostly pescaterian. They didn't have a lot of
room to raise farm animals, but they had a lot
of access to the sea. So people ate a lot of seafood,
and they ate a lot of rice, and they pounded a lot of rice. [POUNDING] Oh, gosh. [MUSIC PLAYING] So my beans have cooled. They got totally tender. I drained and rinsed them, and
now they're back in this pot. And now we're going
to add our rock sugar. So the beans have been
drained, but there's enough moisture
left in them that we will be able to melt the sugar. It's going to kind of turn into
a syrup right around the beans. We're not mashing
the beans, but what happens is the sugar
is going to dissolve in the residual
moisture from the beans, and then it's going to
kind of thicken up and have like a paste consistency,
but we're still going to have whole azuki beans in there. So you don't want to
be too aggressive. We're not getting--
we're not like mashing, we're going to just stir until
that sugar is evenly melted. You want to let it
come to a simmer and then it's going
to get nice and thick. And then we're going
to let this cool and it will become the
filling for our daifuku. [STIRRING] So that, I'm going to just
let that do its thing, and we're going
check on the rice. Let's take a peek. [ANGELIC SINGING] And look at that. It's perfect. The grains are nicely cooked. It's totally tender. Ooh-- steamy. Smells really good. So now that's actually
ready for us to smish-smash. I'm going to just give
our beans a little stir. We want it to take a minute
to come to a full simmer. So I mean, I'm not being
like too precious with it. You don't have to
be super careful, but just don't get
in there and smash. You can stir
vigorously to make sure all that rock sugar dissolves. Now, the Japanese
people, they actually have a really spiritual
relationship with rice because it is so important
in their diet and culture. It's said that the spirit
of rice is called Inadama. And it actually-- they say
it lives within the mochi. So the people who eat
mochi absorb that spirit and it revives
you, energizes you. So it makes really good
sense that the samurais would have this. So you can see this already went
from looking like dry beans, to dry beans with sugar, to
now dry beans in a syrup. And we're going to let it
simmer for a little bit, and it'll thicken
up into a paste. All right. So we got our rice, it's
all steamed and tender, and now we're going to
pound it into mochi. So the first mochi I'm going
to make is the original-- the mochi, no filling. We're just going to
pound our sticky rice. Whenever you're handling
sticky rice, it's very sticky, so everything needs
to be moistened. I'm going to moisten my hands. I'm going to moisten my tools. And whenever you're
doing anything like this, just keep some
cool water nearby. If things start to stick,
just add a splash of water. It'll be OK. I'm going to sprinkle a
little bit in this guy too. OK. So this is called an usu. I don't know if I'm
pronouncing that right, but you'll let me know in the
comments if I messed it up. And it's the traditional thing
for pounding our mochi in. And this is a kine, and
this is what you hammer-- you hammer the rice with that. So I'm keeping my
rice over the water because we want to make
sure it stays warm. The second it cools
off, it gets tough. It gets dry. You're never going to get
a smooth and creamy mochi. So I'm going to keep it in
here and work with a little bit at a time, because I've got
a little guy right here. Can't take too much. Ooh, OK.
See? Nice and steamy. This water under here is hot. If I start to take
too long, I can just pop it back
over the stove, make sure it stays nice and warm. Because we're
mashing it and we're going for smooth
consistency, you really can't like overcook the rice. So wet hands, hot rice. Ooh! Going to throw some in here. So I've never made mochi
like this, out of rice. I've always made
it with rice flour, which you steam with water
and then it's ready to go. It's smooth. It's ready for you to fill. So I'm really interested to
see what this tastes like. I also have a
feeling this is going to be really hard
(LAUGHING) and probably take a really long time. But we'll get there. So I'm just doing a big
handful of rice at a time because I've got this
personal-size usu and kine. But traditionally, you
would use a big one, and there'd be people
taking turns hammering. I'm going at it solo. And we smash, and we smash,
and we fold, and we knead. And We just keep going. [POUNDING] And this is not an easy job,
because we want to pound until it's totally smooth. So I'm just getting in here
and giving it a little flip. And I'm just going
to keep doing that. I'm going to do a pound and
flip, and pound and flip. So actually, right before
New Year's, the Japanese have a celebration
called Mochi-tsuki where the whole family, or even a
whole community, get together and they make mochi. Because this really is
a communal activity. You're not like solo mochi-ing
usually, because this is a difficult job. So I'm just going
to try my best here. It's getting a little
sticky, so I'll moisten. [POUNDING] This is a very difficult job. There. I'm going to-- I'm trying. I'm trying the best that I can. I'm all alone here. I mean, I get what the
samurais were into this, because you get a little workout
so you can train, you know? And then you get your snack. [POUNDING] I'm really-- I'm really
giving it all I got. [POUNDING] Wow. And I'm only smashing enough
for like a bite of mochi here. OK. I tried it in here. I actually kind of want
to try it in here too. So here I've got a
wooden bowl, and this is the pestle from the
molcajete I used earlier, and I want to see how it is. It's a little tough in here,
just because it's so small. So I'm just going to try it out. Going to try it out. Why the hell not? This is definitely not
a traditional tool, but let's give it a shot. I'm going to moisten this up,
transfer my little ball of rice over, and then
let's try it again. See if we can-- because the goal is-- right
now it's smushed together, but you can see all
the grains of rice. The goal is for all of
those grains of rice to disappear so we have a
nice, smooth, creamy texture. OK. I feel like I can get in
here a little bit better. I'm going to keep doing this. I mean, this was fun, but this
is also really lightweight. I imagine that the big ones you
see people using in the videos might be a little bit heavier. Here we go. OK. Now I see a little
snapping, tapping. I actually think I can add
more rice to this party because we're going to make
a couple types of mochi. [ANGELIC SINGING] Hot rice. Hot rice. Hot rice is easier to smush. OK.
All right. All right. So we're going to make
one mochi with no filling, and it's just the pounded rice. And then the other mochi is
going to have this anko paste. The mochi with anko
paste is called daifuku, and it came around
in the 17th century, so it's like a modern mochi. Nowadays, people put
anything in mochi. I've seen really pretty ones
with whole strawberries. [POUNDING] This is going to be a while. I'm going to be
doing this all day. OK. I see why this is
a communal project. I think that maybe
I need a rest. [BEEP] Will you be joining me? Are you here to tap me out? GIFF: OK. [INAUDIBLE] Hand-off. Smash away. Put me to work. [POUNDING] Wow. So much rage. [MUSIC PLAYING] Also remember that there's
a lot more after that. That's just batch one. [MUSIC PLAYING] You're doing great, though. You don't have to
smash it in there. [MUSIC PLAYING] Should I hold the table? Should we-- its this like
a trading places moment? I'll hold the table? Are there any props
that you need? [CLATTER] [LAUGHTER] OK. I should have
stayed on this side. Oh. It's OK. That's just water. OK. So Giff continued smashing away,
and we've gotten pretty close. It's almost all smushed. We have a few grains,
but I think that we did the best that we can. There was a casualty,
though-- we did lose a bowl. Just, he pounded with so much
fury, the bowl came apart. OK. So now I'm going
to form my mochi. I'm going to divide
this into two, and I'm going to make half of
it's going to have no filling, for the traditional
samurai machine. And then half of it
we're going to fill with our anko for the daifuku. So now that we're
smashed, we're going to switch from wet to dry. Before we were
moistening everything, and now we're going to lightly
dust our hands and the surface with rice flour. So it just helps us
with the portioning and help us with our stickage. Get generous with it,
because Giff put so much work into smashing this, you know? We can't lose it to the board. OK. So sticky. So chewy. Sticky is good. Sticky means chew. I'm going to-- I'm going to
really just get in there. OK. OK. (LAUGHING) OK. So we want to kind of
roll this into a log and divide it into portions. When you make mochi at home
with the mochiko flour, it's actually-- it
ends up like this after you steam it
together, so you would be doing kind of the same thing. We got a few lumps
in there, but it's OK because we made it ourself,
with our hands, you know? So I'm going to try and smush
this together and form a log, and we'll see how many
portions we can get. I like it when mochi's
like two bites. I've seen bigger mochi,
but I think it's kind of nice when it's nothing crazy. You don't want a huge mouthful. There's a lot of chew going on. So this is not super smooth, but
we're going to do what we can. You also want to
do this right away. Like Giff smash-- MAN (VOICEOVER): Giff smash! --you roll. Don't pause between
the smash and the roll because the mochi
will start to dry out. So that's why we're
controlling the drying by dusting with flour now. OK. I'm going to try
and move quickly. Try-- try is the word. OK. Let's get some portions
here to dust in our flour. I'm going to try
to make it even. I'm just kind of eyeballing
it, so it's not perfect. But I'm going to quickly
work with these portions before they dry out. And we're just like kind
of forming it into a ball. There's still some lumps and
there's still some clumps, but mochi is an art form. It definitely takes a lot of
work to learn how to make this. Can't learn it in one episode
of "Ancient Recipes." (LAUGHING) OK. I'm going to smush, make
our little mochi bites. Now I like even more appreciate
when you see those really, really, beautifully
formed mochi that are shaped like flowers
or cherry blossoms, because I'm struggling
just to make a ball. So I'm just going to keep
dusting in this rice flower. That's another lumpy
ball. (LAUGHING) Let's try and shove
some anko into here. So this guy, I'm going
to I'm going to dust this side, which is going to-- I'm going to have that
be my outside, right? I'm going to smush here and
then add a spoonful of our anko paste in the middle. Now I'm not going
to get too crazy. That's a little crazy. Let's do a smaller ball. This anko paste is used in
a lot of Japanese desserts. I really, really love it. One of my favorite things is
actually Hawaiian shaved ice. They have these anko beans
cooked in a syrup at the bottom and it's like a
really nice surprise. You know, you got
this ice on top, you got this ice
cream, then boom-- anko beans. Hello. OK. It came out. It came out the other
side. (LAUGHING) Let's try again, guys. Uh, it's definitely
harder than it looks. I'll tell you that. OK. I'm going to try and
fill another one. This is definitely--
this is something that I want to make more. I want to learn how
to do this very well. I'm going to start having
little mochizukis of my own. Right now, it'll just be me,
and my husband, and my dogs. Maybe I can get my
dogs to pound the rice. OK let's try-- let's
go for another daifuku. OK. I'm flattening it out. I'm going to make my outer
edges a little bit thinner than the inner so we
can avoid that hole. And let's go for a little
spoonful of the anko. And let's see if I can
seal this bad boy up, yeah? OK. Because it is so
sticky, it's just like working with Play-doh. It just like-- it
just sticks together. This is-- there's a slight
improvement, I suppose. There's still a little hole. OK. This is a
terrible-looking mochi. Look at that. [MUSIC PLAYING] I'm going to try again. I'm not giving up just yet. OK. Here we go. Another piece. We're going to get one
decent-looking anko. I think I'm not going to
flatten the middle at all, I'm just going to
flatten the edges. Because that's the problem--
my middle is getting too thin. This is going to be the one. I can feel it. All right. We slowly bring up the
sides, pinch, shove. Shove those beans in there. It's like a little Hot Pocket. OK. Not a complete rupture. This is definitely an art form
that takes a lot of practice, but it's a lot of fun, and
all you need is rice and beans and you can try this out too. Add something to smash. And someone to smash. [MUSIC PLAYING] Look-- they're getting better. One, two, three-- huh? [BEEP] These are the ugliest
mochi I've ever seen. Please don't come after me
in the comments, all right? These are my mochi. They are not beautiful, but
I made them with my own hands and now we're going to taste. I'm going to start by
tasting the plain mochi. This is the one that the samurai
would have eaten before battle. [GONG] OK. There's a lot of
chewing on this one. Even though it's not
beautiful, and there's still little, few lumps of
rice, it's actually pretty smooth and chewy on the inside. It came out a lot
better than I thought. And I've only ever made
mochi with mochi flour, and this is so worth the effort. You can really taste
the aromatic rice, and I can really taste a
lot of like, the nuttiness from the steamer. The bamboo steamer actually
imparted a lot of flavor, and it's a nice quiet snack,
you know, when you're in battle. Let me try the daifuku. So this is the mochi that's
filled with the anko paste. I'm going to get in there. I mean, this is a lot more
fun because of the filling. We get nice sweetness
from the beans. It's a really cool
contrast of textures because you get the
very, very, chewy rice and the creamy, soft beans. This feels like a little
bit more indulgent. It feels more like dessert. But even though they're not
pretty, I'm telling you, it actually tastes pretty good. Please believe me. (LAUGHING) Yeah. It tastes like mochi. There's a few little
lumps here and there, but you can't even tell. The sweetness in the
anko is just right. It looks like so much sugar
when you're putting it in there, but there's no sweetness. And you saw, there's not
actually that much of the anko paste in each one, so it's just
the right amount of sweetness when you get in there. Overall, I learned a lot today. I definitely think I'm going
to try and make mochi some more at home, because it's something
I want to learn more about. So I hope you
enjoyed this episode. If you did, be
sure to subscribe. And hit us up in the
comments if there's any vintage or ancient recipes
you want to see us try out. And I'll see you next time. [MUSIC PLAYING]
As much as I love Sohla, there's a channel called Tasting History who has been doing this for a long time now and I wish he got some recognition.
What happened to “Stump Sohla” on babish’s channel? Been a hot minute since she’s put one of those out, no?