Ichigo Daifuku – Strawberry Mochi

Jason — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:05:18 +0000

I don’t often go to Youtube for recipes or recipe ideas, but there are two exceptions in the past few months. The first is Cooking With Dog. I don’t understand why there’s a dog. I don’t understand why it seems like the dog is narrating the whole procedure while some woman does all the work.

I made these a while back for dessert after the Okonomiyaki dinner. The video makes them look very easy, but they are a lot of work with a lot of short windows of opportunity where things can get really screwed up. Of course, I had to make this as hard as possible for myself, so I made my own anko or sweet red bean (azuki or adzuki) paste first. The recipe I used was from a book I had out from the library, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art.

Anko or red bean paste

I love learning traditional ways of making things, and going through the process to make anko the old-fashioned way was enlightening. I don’t have the cookbook I referenced anymore (I borrowed it from the library back in May), so I may be remembering the steps wrong. If you love making anko, please send along your tips, tricks, and recipes. You start by taking azuki beans and soaking and boiling them in water, just like most other bean preparations. Next you mash, smash, puree the beans until they are as smooth as you want. You can then reserve some to leave whole if you wish, but I made a smooth bean paste. Then you thoroughly drain and “rinse” the mashed beans. It was a strange step, something I’ve never done before, but it washed away some of the excess starchiness of the beans. You do all of that in a flour sack cloth, and then wring it dry. What you end up with looks like a really dry, crumbly reddish paste. You can see it in the picture here. Then you add back a little water, a bunch of sugar and heat it up until it’s all dissolved and it becomes shiny and smooth again. It does have a beany taste, but the slight sweetness reminds you that it’s dessert.

Once the anko has been made (or, more often, purchased), you envelop the strawberries with it. You want to made sure your strawberries are clean and completely dry, otherwise the anko will slip around instead of sticking like you see in the video.

The mochi dough is made with sweet rice flour (also known as glutinous rice flour). It’s not actually sweet, nor does it contain gluten, it’s just referring to the different type of starch in the glutinous rice it’s made from (sticky amylopectin instead of amylose). The most popular and widely available brand that I’ve seen and heard of is Mochiko. You basically mix it with sugar and water to make a sweet pasty slurry then steam it for a while. Once it’s been cooked it is very sticky and stretchy. The texture is unique, and changes quickly. As it dries, it firms up and will not stick together well any more, so despite being way too hot to handle with your hands, you have to divide the dough and carefully cover the anko-covered strawberries. Place on corn starch (or powdered sugar) so that they don’t stick, but brush off the excess as it can make the outside too dry. You can see my mochi that I made… they’re messy and misshapen. The small ones just have the anko inside (no strawberry).

They are really a treat. As you bite into them, you pass through the chewy layer of mochi dough and the sweet sticky azuki bean paste to get to the strawberry inside. The mochi dough is nice, but it’s really just a containment system for the filling. The strawberry and red bean flavors combine into something that is definitely greater than the sum of the parts. This recipe is not for the faint of heart, but if you’re feeling adventurous (or see ichigo daifuku in a store or restaurant near you), give them a try.

Ichigo Daifuku

Clever Food Blog » strawberry

Ichigo Daifuku – Strawberry Mochi