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| Mochi, a Japanese dessert, is made with rice flour and often includes green tea for taste and color |
Mochi: it's a sweet, bite-sized Japanese dessert which often includes green tea as a special ingredient. This weekend was my first encounter with mochi and I can understand why these chewy mini treats are trending.
Although it wasn't part of our dining-out mission - my husband, Chris, was looking for a bento box and I was longing for a California roll - in a bit of serendipity, the menu at Kazoku Sushi, our nearby Japanese restaurant, included mochi.
After indulging in our latest dessert foray, the sauerkraut chocolate cake, and enjoying it after every meal this week, I wasn't in the market for any sweet finale to my ginger salad and avocado/crab-filled sushi. But, our waiter strongly recommended the mochi. It's Kazoku Sushi's only dessert offering, but it comes in several varieties. When I saw "green tea" as an mochi option, Chris and I agreed - we had to give it a try.
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| First taste of mochi at our nearby Japanese diner. |
Per an article in Allrecipes from 2021, What is Mochi and How Do You Make it at Home?, they not only defined mochi, but predicted "it's going to be everywhere soon".
As noted in Allrecipes, mochi is a Japanese dessert made of sweet glutinous rice flour. (For those on a gluten-free diet, do not be mislead by the title - there's no gluten in this rice.) Green tea powder (matcha) is often added for taste and color and when the sticky mixture is ready, it can be filled with ice cream or sweet red bean paste.
The Allrecipes article includes a recipe for Green Tea Mochi Ice Cream. We're prepping the BTS test kitchen for a future go on this. (Stay tuned!)
In the meantime, other tidbits we gleaned: in Japanese culture mochi is considered a "food of the Gods", a symbol of good fortune and happy marriages.
That's a lot to pack in a bit-size confection, but, after one small sampling, we can confirm this much for sure: mochi is a tasty treat and we'll be looking for it everywhere soon.
2 comments:
We found Mochi a couple years ago at (if I’m remembering correctly) Nino’s grocery (in Bloomfield, MI). Also, about 15 years ago at a restaurant in Champaign, IL, we had an after dinner treat of two sorbets: red beet flavored, and green tea flavored. If you’re ever in that area, the restaurant, Ko Fusion, is still open.
Good to know! Thanks for the info. We also saw several sources citing Trader Joe's as a place to buy mochi.
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