By Request

BETTY SHIMABUKURO

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Mochi is easy to prepare
in a variety of tasty flavors

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Making mochi isn't as hard as you'd think. The ingredients are simple and if you can boil water and stir, you've got the technique.

The hard part is clean-up. Fresh mochi dough is one of the stickiest substances on the planet. (Hint: Soak the pot, then use one of those plastic scrapers that they sell to spread frosting and trim pie crusts. A rice paddle or a spatula would be a second-best choice.)

Recipes for mochi are a frequent request to this column, particularly the new-wave types filled with fruit or peanut butter. Authoritative recipes are hard to come by, meaning that most mochi-makers just eyeball their measurements and won't specify exact amounts.

But the recently published "Hawaii Soto Mission Cookbook: Our Tradition and Pride," includes 27 recipes for mochi and its cousins, manju, bibinka, chichi dango and gau. Versions range from custard to coffee and include the following peanut-butter recipe.

The dough is soft and easy to work with as long as you keep the stickiness under control with lots of potato starch. The only trick is to keep watch over the dough while it's cooking so it doesn't burn on the bottom: Keep stirring.

The cookbook was published to mark the Soto Buddhist mission's centennial, which will be celebrated in a series of events in October. It includes a wide variety of local-style recipes spanning all ethnicities.

Order by mail for $12, plus $5 postage. Write Hawaii Soto Mission, care of Wahiawa Ryusenji Soto/Mission, P.O. Box 860838, Wahiawa 96786.

Peanut Butter Mochi

3 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 16-ounce box mochiko (sweet rice flour)
Katakuriko (potato starch), for dusting
>> Filling:
1 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup honey

To make filling, combine peanut butter and honey; refrigerate until firm, a few hours or overnight.

Bring water to a boil; add sugar and stir until dissolved. Add mochiko a little at a time, stirring constantly. Continue stirring over medium heat until lumps are dissolved.

Place dough on a surface dusted with katakuriko. Allow to cool slightly. Sprinkle with more katakuriko and knead a few times until smooth. Form into a log.

Pinch off a 1-1/2 inch piece of dough and flatten into a circle. Place a teaspoon of filling in the center. Fold edges around filling and pinch to seal. Makes about 2 dozen mochi.

Variations: For strawberry mochi, coat strawberries in koshi-an (sweet bean paste), then wrap in mochi dough. Add red food coloring to the boiling water if desired to turn the dough pink. For chocolate-peanut butter mochi, substitute chocolate sauce for the honey in the filling, or wrap a chocolate Kiss in the filling.

Nutritional information unavailable.

Food Stuffs: Morsels

Send queries along with name and phone number to:
"By Request," Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
500 Ala Moana, No. 7-210, Honolulu 96813.
Or send e-mail to bshimabukuro@starbulletin.com

Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the Body & Soul section indicates calculations by Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.