mochihead

Here's our ozoni from this year! You can read more about it here.

Happy New Year everyone! Living in Hawai'i makes us one of the last timezones to actually ring in the new year. Some of you may already be in day 2 of the New Year, while we're just getting started on Day 1! Being of Japanese-Chinese descent as well as a born & raised Hawai'i girl, we still celebrate a lot of the traditional foods and customs of New Years celebration - cleaning the entire house before the New Year, setting off fireworks to ward off the evil spirits, drinking sake for good luck. We also still make mochi & the traditional ozoni (mochi soup). Step 1: Cooking the mochi-gome (rice). When we were growing up, the families & friends used to get together to make the mochi. Traditionally, the mochi-gome was soaked overnight then steamed over an open fire. Today, as the families moved away and time passed on, my immediate family uses an electronic mochi maker to cook & "pound" the rice into mochi. We use a Tiger SMH-1801 CR mochi maker bought from Marukai for about $120 around 10 years ago. The soaked rice is put in the bin with water and cooked for about 40 minutes. Here, you can see the cooked rice. Notice the three buttons on the side? The middle one is to cook the rice. Here's a batch of cooked rice that had ground green tea added to it. Step 2: Pounding the rice. After the rice was cooked, it was then poured into an usu (large stone/wooden mortar) and pounded with a kine (large wooden pestle) by the men. Inevitably, there was always one man who had no rhythm or aim, and his batch of mochi would end up with splinters in it while the man turning the hot rice in the usu would be cursing (after being hit by the kine). With our modern mochi maker, we don't have splinters or bruised hands anymore. Now, the "pounding" is done at the touch of a button. Here's my brother getting ready to "pound" the next batch of mochi. (The third button on the machine.) Dad is turning the mochi rice and wetting it as it is being "pounded." Step 3: Forming the mochi. In the past, the women would take the pounded rice and form the mochi balls, using katakuriko (potato starch) to keep the mochi from sticking. In these modern times, nothing has changed. Dad & Mom are pouring out the pounded rice from the "usu" into a tray of katakuriko. When forming the mochi, grab a part of the hot pounded rice in your hands and pinch between your thumb and forefinger to form a ball. There should be no seams, creases, or dimples when done properly. To add the tsubushian (sweetened red bean paste) to the inside of the mochi, stretch out the mochi slightly, wrap a tsubushian ball inside the rice and form the mochi the same way. The tsubushian was made a couple of days ago by soaking dried azuki beans overnight in water, then cooked until almost all the water is gone and the beans are soft. Add sugar & salt to taste, then mash slightly. You can make this into koshi-an (sweet red bean "jam") by pressing the cooked tsubushian through a sieve to remove the skins & make smooth). I have two blisters on my right hand from the constant stirring of the tsubushian. RAWR! Anyway, here's me forming some of the green tea mochi in my traditional mochi-making attire. This winter has been particularly warm and dry - 80 degrees and no rain! Girl-chan (my 3 year old niece), helped make mochi this year. She has "scribbles and snakes" forms of mochi down pat. Next year we're hoping that she can actually make "balls"! Here she is, showing us just how sticky mochi is. Step 4: Mochi Aftermath Once the mochi has been made, we fill up our dining room table with them and then start packing them up to deliver to various family and friends. The really big mochi on the plates & pans are for the kasane (kagami) mochi. Close up of individual mochi. Sorry for the weirdness of it - it's really difficult to cut soft mochi photogenically. At least for me! Step 5: Ozoni The traditional good luck mochi soup is eaten on New Years. You can read more about it in this thread. Our ozoni contains carrots, daikon, mizuna, dried shredded ika, konbu, gobo (burdock), hasu (lotus root) in a dashi-bonito broth and topped with kamaboko and araimo (a sort of potato). I was told that the veggies are normally cut into rounds to represent the gold & silver money. In our household, we eat the soup part of the ozoni with soba and/or saimin & won ton (this year we made gyoza) after the midnight fireworks. When we wake up in the morning, we eat it the customary way with mochi in it. The rest of our New Years breakfast consists of kuromame (sweetened black beans with chestnuts) and yokan (azuki "jelly" made with agar agar). Step 6: Kasane (Kagami) Mochi & Kadomatsu For good luck, we have two of the mochi placed on some ferns with a tangerine on top as an offering for the new year. Kasane is "piled" mochi while kagami is "two mirrors". I think. I'm having a no-sleep moment, so maybe Hiroyuki or Torakris can help me out on this one? Kadomatsu is a pine & bamboo arrangement bound by rope and placed in front of the entrance. Originally it contained water "in case of fires." The bamboo and pine are supposed to represent strength and growth. One story of the kadomatsu is that the sticky pine traps the evil spirits inside of the bamboo before they can enter the house. Later, the kadomatsu is burned, destroying the evil spirits and protecting the household for the rest of the year. I hope everyone has had a fabulous celebration and will have an ultra-faboo and prosperous New Year with lots of yummy food with family and friends!

It's that time of year again, and all the veggies and ingredients have just been bought and gathered: mizuna, carrots, daikon, dried ika, konbu, araimo, gobo, kamaboko, bonito, hasu... tomorrow there will be lots of chopping and cleaning of the veggies! Tonite we soak the rice. Tomorrow is for steaming, pounding and forming it into mochi. I'm currently soaking the azuki for the tsubishian fillling (and later to turn into zenzai for dessert). One of my friends likes to eat his ozouni with an-filled mochi and sweet kuromame in it. The tastebuds fall off of my tongue just thinking about it. We also need to make noodles and wonton, for those in my family that just don't like to eat their ozouni with mochi. Hmph.

My roommate in college put water on the stove to boil potatoes. She turned on stove, left for class, and returned TWO HOURS LATER to our townhouse with every single window & door open, fans blowing and black, acrid, putrid smoke billowing everywhere. In the midst of the smoke was me, in my pajamas, melted pot in hand. I was asleep upstairs until I was woken up by choking and the smoke alarm going off. She thought that it would take 2 hours for her 1 quart of water to boil. We never again let her near the stove. My "never agains," unfortunately, keep happening to me. Don't take hot pan out of oven, close oven, then touch hot pan without mitts. Don't get distracted and grate knuckles with microplane. Don't dump ingredients into a bowl and lose count on the fifth ingredient. Use a separate bowl! "Was that the fourth or fifth cup of flour I just added?" However, I will always end up with oil burns and oven burns on my ribs, because I just can't stand cooking with sleeves and shirts on. Kitchen is waaaay too hot for me to cook in more than a sports bra and shorts! Even in the winter! (Ok, so winters here are 70-80 degrees, but still...)

Cilantro, aka "DEATH HERB," is one of the most horrible, vile things I cannot stand to eat or smell to this day. Yet, I have to have small amounts of it in salsa and some Vietnamese sauces because without it, the overall flavors just don't round & balance out properly. But I'm holding my breath the whole time I'm chopping, cleaning & then washing anything that has touched it. RAWR!

What an amazing blog about a culture and foods that I don't know a lot about! How are the olive oils different in taste from oils from other parts of the world?

Rosetti or, if you're in Hawai'i, called Chinese pretzels. I'm still not sure why, though. I don't remember it being part of any traditional Chinese desserts while growing up. You have such a beautiful and well-written blog, Zucchini Mama! I've been having such a great time "visiting" you thorough your wonderful stories and pictures.

The marshmallow thread and the pate choux thread. <3 I love both of those creations and am always looking for new ways to make them and improve upon them. The photos and descriptions in both are to die for! Oh, and anything to do with Torakris, because she always finds such amazing Japanese products!

Ling - what kind of pans are you using? If you're using dark non-stick pans, they will tend to darken the bottoms faster than the tops. If you're using regular non-stick pans, have you tried using silpat or a double pan to bake with to provide some insulation against the direct heat?

Oatmeal cookies, orange-hazelnut biscotti, Chinese pretzels (also called rosetti), Neapolitan cookies, dark fruitcake (minus the horrible neon fruit things), homemade eggnog (YUM!!!!!) Honey tangerines are also holidays for us, because that's when our tree is in full fruit mode! But just keep the candy canes and minty type things away from me, please. Ugh.

*WINCE* Why did I click and look at the pictures? Ugh. Cooking scars. I'm a walking memorial from all the years of homecooking and catering. My latest ones are slicing through the cuticle of my left middle finger, burn on the ribs on my right side (it's hot here and I typically wear a sports bra and shorts to cook in and then run into the oven door), oil splash burns on my arms and legs.

Torakris, that looks yummy! My niece eats tons of kamaboko - so does my cat. I personally don't really enjoy it, but I do like the chikuwa and such in oden. On the other hand, using the tsurimi is great for won ton fillings when mixed with sesame oil, green onions, etc. Tsurimi mixed with chopped shrimp and other ingredients, floured and then fried is also great!

I'm so glad that I'm not the only one that does that! I always get scolding for putting things on top of the fridge or freezer while I'm digging around and forget that I left things there! I also have a bad habit of leaving my books that I'm reading in the fridge because I read, look for something to eat and put the books on the top shelf while I scrounge for something. And then I close the door and spend the next 15 minutes looking for my book. () Currently on the top of the fridge & freezer is the cat. Nothing else, because the cat likes to sit up top and anything we put on there gets knocked to the floor - like it's invading his space or something. But at least the top of the fridge & freezer are dust free because of him!

Boiled peanuts are also popular in Hawai'i, and you don't get much more "south" than that! hee hee. Actually, I personally first ate grits with cheese when I attended college on the mainland. Dated someone that cooked me up real grits. Yum! On the other hand, he offset any culinary points he gained with me by cooking minute rice. Yuck!

D'oh! I should have thought of that - it would be similar to making tempura ice cream. Thank you for the link, Hiroyuki! Now I'll have something new to experiment with later this week.

Japan always has the most beautiful desserts! Damn it, I want to know how they get the cream in the middle without it turning into a big gloppy mess...

It will keep like any other grains/flours that you have around the house. You want to be careful of bugs and critters if you keep it in your cupboards - whether open or unopened. You can avoid the bugs by putting it in the freezer. We've kept it for several months in the freezer, unopened. (We make a ton of mochi throughout the year, so always have at least 8 boxes in the freezer at any given time.)

Watermelon seeds were something we used to snack on everytime we visited our grandparents in Honolulu. My dad told us that the watermelon seeds were all the seeds spat out by the old Chinese men when they were done eating the watermelon. (Not to offend anyone. I'm part Chinese, myself.)

Oh my goodness!!! You're making me miss living in Nor Cal again, when I used to go visit the local farms and markets every weekend! I wish I could be there again - I would love to have the chance to cook with some of your wonderful produce!

Excellent... I have a new recipe to try out this week! There is no such thing as too much research into the most perfect chewy chocolate chip cookie!

If you want a smooth rather than a "homestyle, chunky" mash, you can also push the potatoes through a sieve. (Personally, I prefer mashing with a fork for more homestyle mash.)

Another 14 more for me... and 6 more on the way. 8-O

Ugh. That woman is amazing. You don't offer help to someone and then stab them in the back with your own ethical/moral/personal issues pie. What is this world coming to when the "I ME MINE ONLY AM RIGHT YOU'RE WRONG" attitude is replacing courtesy and respect? They don't seem to realize that their attitudes and beliefs should stay their own and not be forced on others. Especially as a guest in someone else's home. Now, if it's in their own home, they have every right to serve whatever the hell it is they want. I have no problem with people having their own issues. I personally don't eat land meat, but it doesn't mean I go and throw all the steaks into the goat pasture in the back when my family has a BBQ. Genuine offers of help means you HELP the hostess, not make things worse. Yeesh.

Mmmmm.... chicken feet! Used to be one of my favorite things to eat, back when I was still eating land meat! Such a wonderful blog with absolutely fabulous pictures! Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us!

What about breads like focaccia that don't take a lot of rising time, can be done in a big sheet pan or rounds and topped with a billion different toppings (tomato, herbs, parmesan, onions, etc.)? Or maybe lavash with sesame seeds or poppy seeds. Perhaps accompanied by a chutney or tapenade that can be made in advance.