smushy mushies... on ice...

For as long as I can remember, my sister has loved mochi balls. Maybe it's a soft texture thing, because she also loves mashed potatoes, baby beef rice, chicken and cream of corn on rice and a whole bunch of things she doesn't really have to chew...

The first time that she had mochi ice cream (have I ever mentioned before that ice cream is a breakfast food in this house?), she went positively ape$hit. No one was allowed to touch any of the mochi ice cream that was in the freezer. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but that was the extent of her love for the cold little treat.

So when I saw the recipe in the Nobu cookbook, I knew it was a must try. I went to J-town, bought some mochi flour (which is really hard considering that A) I don't read Japanese, and B) I didn't realize that mochi flour and rice flour were the same thing) and set out to make this seemingly easy dish.

Yeah right.

Nobu's recipe has a wee misprint, methinks. It calls for 30 sec of microwaving the mochi, sugar, water mix and then vigorous "beating" of the paste with a wooden spoon, upon which the paste was supposed to get thick and elastic-y. Repeat 3x. Well, I microwaved for the requisite 30 seconds, beat the liquid (with the consistency of very, very thin white glue) vigorously for neigh on 10 minutes, and NOTHING HAPPENED. Repeat 5 x.

It wasn't until I googled mochi ice cream that I found out that the microwaving is supposed to cook the mochi flour, sugar, water mixture, so that it really DOES become thick and elastic-y... and instead of microwaving for 30 sec like the book says, I was actually supposed to microwave it for at least 1.5 minutes.

Big difference.

Once I found out, I was no longer splashing around in sweet flour water. I actually had a super sticky dough that I could kinda work with (with the help of A LOT of cornstarch).

At the end of the night, I was covered from head to toe with mochi remnants, but I also had some amateurishly shaped yet pretty darn tasty mochi ice cream. I don't claim the recipe to be a complete success, but it's a start and I'll definitely try it again the next time Sista comes home for a visit.