Mochi Surprise
When I’m cooking alone, it’s really hard to surprise myself. I know exactly what goes into my cooking, and I can mostly predict the outcome. But with these mystery mochi parcels, I finally could be surprised!
This came about somewhat unintentionally. I was initially craving mochi so I started off by just making a glutinous rice dough, kneaded it and portioned it out. I wanted to give them a PB&J filling, but then I thought, hmm why don’t I give each individual mochi a different filling? So I did! I filled peanut butter in a few, jam in others, and used nutella and even kaya (Malaysian coconut jam) for some of the final few stragglers.
I folded them into these square parcels — mainly because this was the easiest way to wrap a liquid filling without it spilling out, but on the plus side they also turned out looking pretty cool — boiled them up, and let them simmer in a brown sugar syrup, at which point they all mixed up and it became tricky to tell them apart.
But this made them a lot more fun to eat, because I didn’t know the flavour I was getting until I bit into each mochi. Which maybe is a metaphor for relationships — you never truly know if you’ll like someone until you give it a try. Although to be honest I actually did like all of these mochis, so the metaphor kinda falls apart there… Oh well, they’re still a brilliantly tasty meal to make for (and to surprise) yourself!
Mochi Surprise
Serves: 1
Total Cook Time: 30
Ingredients
Mochi dough:
1 cup (120g) glutinous rice flour
⅓ cup (80ml) boiling hot water, plus more if need
1 tbsp (10g) granulated sugar
¼ tsp (1g) salt
3-4 tbsp in total of your favourite fillings (I used peanut butter, jam, nutella, and kaya)
Sugar syrup:
3 tbsp (30g) brown sugar
½ cup (120ml) water
Method
Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Combine the glutinous rice flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl, then add the water into the bowl, mixing it with a spatula or chopsticks until a smooth dough forms. The dough should be pliable but shouldn’t stick to your hand when you touch it. If it’s too dry or too wet, you can adjust its consistency with more water or flour.
Divide the dough into 20g pieces, and roll each piece into a ball. You should get around 10 balls this way. Working with one dough ball at a time, with well-floured hands, press the dough in between your palms to flatten them into a disc, then press and stretch them out even more with your fingers, until you get a flat disc at least 10cm (4 inches) wide. Put half a tablespoon of your chosen filling into the centre of the dough disc, then lift up two opposing sides of the dough disc and lightly pinch them together, enclosing the filing within. Pick up the two longer ends and fold them into the center as well, pinch and shape them into the square parcels you see in the photos above, making sure the filling is completely sealed within. Repeat for all of the doughs, filling them with different fillings if you wish.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. At the same time, make the brown sugar syrup by combining brown sugar and water in a wide frying pan and letting it simmer over medium heat.
Drop all the filled mochi parcels into the water to boil for 2-3 minutes, until it floats. When all the mochis are floating, take them out of the water and transfer them into the brown sugar syrup, with the flat side on the bottom. Let the mochis cook in the syrup for 1 minute, shaking the pan around constantly to prevent the mochis from sticking to the bottom.
When done, take the mochis out of the pan and serve in a bowl or plate, along with a few spoonfuls of the syrup.
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