Mochi

Mochi is a food prepared from rice and used as an ingredient in several Japanese recipes.

How to cook Mochi:

1. Prepare steamed glutinous rice;
2. Pound it in a mortar; and
3. Form it into various shapes (Usually a circle or square).

While eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and commonly sold and eaten at that time. Mochi is very sticky; every year after the new year, it is reported in the media how many people die from choking on it.

Popular dishes with Mochi:

• Zoni, a soup containing rice cakes. Zoni is also eaten on New Year's Day. In addition to mochi, zoni contains vegetables like honeywort, carrot, and red and white colored boiled fish sausage.
• Yaki-mochi, a grilled rice cake. After the rice cake is grilled, put soy sauce and wrap a toasted laver (nori) around the cake.
• Shiruko, a sweet adzuki (red-bean) soup with pieces of rice cake. In winter, Japanese people often eat it to warm themselves.
• Daifuku, a soft rice cake stuffed with sweetened bean jam.
• Mochi ice cream, small balls of ice cream wrapped inside a mochi covering. This is very popular in California.

For the pre-Columbian Peruvian culture, see Moche; for the drink, see mocha.