![]() To make the mochi dough, combine the flour, water and sugar in a bowl. Wrap each disk around a strawberry and set aside.ģ. Divide your bean paste into 6 even balls before flattening into discs. Prepare your strawberries by washing them and cutting off the stems.Ģ. Luckily, with a bit of know-how and the right ingredients, springtime strawberry mochi is surprisingly easy to make at home!įind our easy recipe below and the ingredients you’ll need from our online Japanese grocery store to start making your own authentic ichigo daifuku.ġ. Depending on where it’s made, the mochi can have either a red or white bean filling. Originating from the 80s, ichigo daifuku is a relatively new treat just waiting to be enjoyed. ![]() With the combination of the tart fruit and succulent mochi, it’s no surprise these little bites are a Japanese favourite! This delicacy consists of a fresh juicy strawberry wrapped in a sweet bean paste and soft mochi dough. ![]() * So sticky in fact that people die every year in Japan from choking on a mouthful of mochi too large to swallow.Ichigo daifuku, or strawberry mochi, is a delicious sweet treat from Japan, often particularly popular around springtime. I also read that chunks of mango work very well any other stuffing suggestions to share? I might try to make the more classic anko-filled daifuku next time (I understand those can be made in larger batches and frozen, which isn’t true of the strawberry ones), and I may flavor/color the dough with green tea powder. I still need to work on my daifuku-shaping skills, but the process is a lot of fun and the outcome makes me and the other daifuku-lover in my household very happy, so I will be glad to practice. I obviously don’t know which store they go to, and how fresh those store-bought daifuku might be, but I’m here to tell you that the glow and bounce of a just-made daifuku is nothing if not worth the trouble. When I was researching all things mochi online, I read a few comments written by people who didn’t see the point of making their own daifuku when they could just buy them at the store. The latter kind, called ichigo daifuku in Japanese, was a revelation: I’d always had daifuku stuffed with a quite sweet, paste-like filling, and this variation took the concept to new heights: underneath the soft, powder-dusted exterior, the chewy-gooey layer of mochi, and the velvet of the anko, lay a juicy surprise that added freshness and a delicate floral flavor to the confection, making it easier on the sweet-o-meter, too.Īt the first chance I got, I went out and bought the ingredients to repeat the experience in my own kitchen - whenever I take a cooking class, I try to make the recipes again shortly after, while the memory is still fresh - and on Saturday, I made my very first homemade batch of strawberry daifuku. We then moved on to daifuku, of which we made two fruit-based kinds: some we filled with a chunk of kiwi wrapped in a layer of anko, others with a similarly anko-sheathed strawberry. We tasted ours with anko, with a sesame sauce, with a caramelized soy sauce, and with toasted soybean powder (kinako). She first had us make dango, little balls of mochi skewered together and served warm, with a sauce or topping that can be sweet, savory, or both. Our teacher was Chihiro Tokioka, a Kyoto-born woman who now works as a cook and journalist in Paris. When I first tasted (and took a shine to) daifuku in California years ago - we got them from our local Nijiya market - I thought of them as mochi, and kept calling them that until the afore-mentioned cooking class taught me otherwise. I myself only recently learned the difference. So that’s what mochi is, but it seems that many people outside of Japan use this term when they really mean daifuku mochi (or daifuku for short), which are soft mochi dumplings stuffed with a sweet filling, such as red bean paste (anko) or white bean paste (shiroan), served at room temperature and enjoyed as an afternoon treat (rather than a dessert). I’m here to tell you that the glow and bounce of a freshly-made daifuku is plenty worth your trouble. Although mochi is traditionally pounded from freshly cooked rice, modern home cooks are more likely to buy it ready-made at the store, or make it from rice flour. Mochi can be boiled, steamed, grilled, baked, or fried, and because it doesn’t have much inherent flavor, it is usually eaten with sweet or savory accompaniments. A few weeks ago, my friend Estérelle and I attended a mochi cooking class held at La Cocotte, a lovely little cookbook shop in Paris.īefore we go any further, I think a semantics note is in order: strictly speaking, mochi is the name of a Japanese preparation of steamed glutinous rice that is pounded to form a sticky paste*.
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