Sometimes I make recipes out of necessity and sometimes I like trying recipes that maybe home cooks normally wouldn’t. Sometimes, while recipes are do-able…it’s best to just leave it up to the professionals right? Would I put this recipe in that category? Yes and no. While I think I found a really good recipe and think I have done a pretty dang good job at making it…it is a bit tedious. To me it was worth it, the people I shared it with seemed to enjoy it very much and I finally found a great recipe that keeps the mochi super soft! Ahh…love it when science experiments…work!
I owe my success all to this recipe. I mean he does it better than me but still…!
First step, did you know you need to “dry” out your koshian? Empty your entire can of koshian into your pan over medium heat and just start moving it around. How did I know it was done? Honestly when it lost all its sheen and became very paste like. See the difference between the first shot and the second shot?
I let the koshian cool down and then place it in the fridge – I’ve kept it in overnight to set-up. It helps that the paste is as thick as possible especially when you are using it to wrap the strawberries. He goes a further step to measure out the koshian paste, I found that as long as I wrap each strawberry with the paste in the same way…it works fine.
One of the most tedious things about this recipe? Having to wash and thoroughly dry each strawberry. Also!!! How do mochi shops get the same sized strawberries for their mochi?? I had so many different sizes in my one carton…it was frustrating. That is why measuring out the koshian into balls made no difference for me so I just wrapped each strawberry with paste in the same way. I left the tip uncovered to help in the wrapping of the mochi and I think it also keeps it less sweet. This mochi is humbug in the way that you can’t make this ahead of time…you basically have to make it and eat it already. The strawberry can start getting very wet and well, everything needs to be dry to wrap a good mochi.
I don’t have pictures of me wrapping the mochi, I’m sorry. But when my hands are handling hot molten lava covered in corn starch (I didn’t have potato starch) trying to wrap the strawberries…I can’t take pictures. Here one batch of the recipe in the video. I bought this plate from Daiso, a great size. I’m not great with math and I think I can get 6 big daifuku out of this batch.
I followed the video to a T with the measurements. He uses shiratamako, I only had the Blue Star Mochiko so I used that. I also don’t have a 900W microwave oven so I used the handy time table on this page to figure out how long to microwave mine! It worked perfect!!!
I would type out the recipe but really, the credit all goes to this blogger, RECIPE.
My recipe notes:
- I used mochiko instead of shiratamako
- I wrapped the strawberries fairly quickly out of the microwave oven because that’s when they are softest. They did maintain the softness throughout the day! My friend even reported that it stayed soft with overnight refrigeration!
- I followed his measurements in grams and ML. I find that recipes work the best when I follow those measurements
Good luck if you decide to try making this recipe! It was a great success for me and maybe I’ll make it again when it’s peak strawberry season again.
