Photos: Passport & Plate - Japanese balls (Daifuku Mochi)

take_off — Thu, 5 Mar 2015 00:17:00 GMT

Ingredients
200 g rice flour
????ml water
74 g sugar
150 g red bean paste (Anko)
6-10 strawberries
corn starch

How to prepare this recipe
Whisk rice flour with sugar in a microwave safe glass bowl. Add water gradually while whisking. Make sure it is all well combined.
Now prepare some anko strawberries. Take a strawberry and wrap it into a layer of anko paste. A small tip: it is better to use smaller strawberries and not to make anko wrap too thick, otherwise it will be tricky to cover them with dough afterwards). Set anko strawberries aside.
Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap. Put the bowl into a microwave on high heat for 1 minute. The mochi dough will get a bit clogged – take it out and stir well with a rubber spatula. Cover again and give it another minute in the microwave. Repeat the procedure with stirring. Put the dough into the microwave for 30 seconds for the third and last time and afterwards stir well again.
Cover your working surface with parchment paper and dust it with corn starch (a lot of starch, because mochi dough is very sticky). Transfer the dough on the working surface, sprinkle it with starch and let it cool down a bit. Spread the dough into a thinner layer (not too thin, because mochi would fall apart) with a rubber spatula or with your hands (if you choose the second option, then make sure your hands are dry and generously covered with corn starch to avoid sticking). Put the mochi dough as it is on parchment paper into a fridge for about 15-20 minutes.
When taken out, cut out circles with a big glass or a cookie cutter. Quantity of mochi wrappers depends on how much dough you have. Once you have cut the mochi circles, you can spread the dough leftovers and cut a few more.
Take one mochi circle and place an anko strawberry in the center. Pinch the corners of the mochi circle together to wrap the dough around the anko strawberry. Roll the ball carefully in your hands to make it even. When ready, place the mochi ball on a corn starch dusted plate or into paper cups.

The story behind this recipe
“What is the name of it? What did you say again? Okay, I’ll just call it ‘balls’”.
This is how it all began. At the friend’s birthday party when he decided to make it a global dinner. Why not? We are all international students coming from all continents to a small German city to study Global studies. So, his idea was clear: let’s not miss a chance to try national dishes from worldwide. What a dinner was it! Folks from 15 different countries presented such a variety of ingredients in one place that any avid foodie would be jealous. No need to go overseas – delicacies from Bolivia, Thailand, India, France and a dozen more are right here in this small dorm room in this small city in East Germany. And this is where I fell in love with Japanese mochi. I praised my Taiwanese friend (he’s the master of mochi) saying that to recreate such magic must be a tough task. It is the tastiest dessert I’ve ever had in my life. And the name of it fell out of my memory so fast that I just renamed it into “balls”.
Our global student community has split. It was time to hit the road to new destinations. There were long farewells and promises to send postcards and pictures of our travels to all the corners of the planet. I guess, the small city in the East Germany would remember our global crowd for a while.

“I miss the balls. And I can’t cook them myself!” I’d write to my friend. He would laugh, “You should come to Vienna!” Jokes are jokes, but one year after I book a ticket and set myself on the 20-hour bus trip from Denmark to Austria. Crazy? Most probably yes, as I have an adventurous night with a ferry, two hours in Berlin and Prague to meet my international buddies and practice a few foreign languages along the way.
… And it is in another small dorm room in another country that we get together with our global fellows, recall our journeys and indulge into the tastiest dessert made by the dearest friend.

My Scholarship entry - Understanding a Culture through Food

take_off — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:17:00 GMT

No way. They must be kidding me. How on earth could those guys just shovel in mountains of picadillo wrapped in a corn pancake so rapidly? That is the baffling thought zipping through my mind back and forward at the sight of Mexican chaps having lunch in a kind of saloon in San Antonio. A “kind of”, because there isn’t a hint of at least one menacing and glamorous TVstar-like cowboy sitting on the stool, ordering pint after pint and gazing threateningly all around. In fact, alas, it is not a western shooting ground with Clint Eastwood either who would be concealing himself behind an enormous plate of Tex-Mex lunch. Albeit, who knows, folks. So stop moaning for French fries and burgers (if only!), watch others and beat the record of chalupa eaters. So, here’s the puzzle. Take a freshly baked chalupa, put some tasty smelling rice as well as not that tasty smelling beans, an awful lot of picadillo meat and dress it all in salsa. Usually when I hear the word “salsa”, I start shaking my hips at the drop of hat and humming some Oscar D’Leon songs. What a pleasure to realize that all my dance appetite and D’Leon’s passion look like a mix of tomatoes, chilies, garlic and parsley on the top of hash. The liaison with fervent dance needs no proof since it is bright red and fairly spicy. After adding some cheese to this Mexican mountain of eatables, my plate deserves to be called Pico de Orizaba so far as it doesn’t forego the highest peak in Mexico. Mexican diners are watching with a risen brow expecting me to pick at my chalupa and nibble a couple of beans. With hidden Clint Eastwood or not, but I feel a movie tension rising to the highest point and tuck into my enormous Tex-Mex mix like I’ve been starving in the Mexican desert for ages. Now it is my observers’ time to exclaim “No way! How does this girl manage to keep on asking for extra picadillo and beans and perform salsa moves all at once?”

Vagabonding here and there

Photos: Passport & Plate - Japanese balls (Daifuku Mochi)

My Scholarship entry - Understanding a Culture through Food