Leftover Rice Mochi Balls
I got very excited when a friend of mine shared with me a new viral sensation video about leftover rice mochi balls. For those who don’t know about Mochi, it’s basically a chewy textured sweet glutenous rice based dough that is made into a lot of different type of Asian dishes and snacks. The most traditional being the adzuki sweet red bean paste filled mochi desserts. I remember as a child receiving these sweets desserts from family and friends when they would visit us or host us at their homes. It was always considered a treat and saved for only special occasions. Despite the fact that they were categorized as such a highly “special” dessert, my sister and I never really loved them since we felt they were far too sweet for our palettes. Something about the graininess of the red bean paste combined with the chewy and squishy nature of the mochi just didn’t set well with us. Over the years, mochi began to change, it became dusted in beautiful and nutty black and tan sesame powders, the colors of them changed from the basic pale white to lovely pastel pink and vibrant sage green and started to take on many varieties and flavors. Still, with the changes, they didn't fall into our category of favorites.
One day, we discovered a true innovation in mochi, the invention of the ice cream mochi, and our lives were forever changed. The soft slightly chewy rice dough enrobed little discs of green tea, strawberry or vanilla ice cream, making them easy to eat, properly portioned and ever so pretty to look at in their pink, off white and she green rice doughs. That’s when my taste buds began to sing.
When I met my now husband, then boyfriend, I was introduced to a whole other world of mochi with his Japanese aunties in Hawaii. The meld of the Japanese culture with the island traditions introduced a whole new world of flavors and recipes I wasn’t aware of. In celebration of the New Year, the Japanese often each mochi as a sign of good fortune and its stretchy texture is a sign of longevity, hence an important symbolic food to be consumed but also offered to the Japanese gods. We actually had the opportunity to pound the rice in an old stone usu (large mortar) with a kine (wooden mallets) and make it into the sweet mochi dough the “old-fashioned” way. It was tedious and time consuming, requiring technique, insight and much experience to maintain the proper moisture in the dough, cadence to the pounding and perfect glutinous consistency at the end. His auntie took the mochi, rolled them into little disks and pan fried them to a golden crispy shell on the exterior. She then took the crispy mochi disks and placed them into bowls, pairing them with fish cakes, mushrooms and mizuna (a Japanese green similar to arugula) and covering them with a piping hot chicken broth. The mochi cakes would crackle when they touched the hot soup. The mochi would be soft, chewy and crispy. I think I died and went to heaven right then.
Since that moment in Hawaii, well since my 2nd and 3rd helping of the soup, I haven’t had anything quite like it again, especially in the US. Being a savory person, this soup based entree approach to mochi completely changed my world and blew my mind. It wasn’t until I was shared this viral sensation video nearly 15 years later, have I found a much more modern day approach to those crispy and savory mochi disks in Hawaii. While his auntie’s don’t go through the mochi pounding anymore; they have since replaced it with a machine that does all the “pounding” of the rice into the dough, it was always a lot of work and not quite worth all the trouble to learn how to make.
So introducing the leftover rice mochi balls, with some innovations and edits to accommodate not only what I had in my fridge, but also to lean into those original Japanese inspiration of the mochi. A little scallion, a touch of cilantro an a hint of wasabi, these little chewy pillows of leftover rice make you think, if my leftovers can taste this good, what can I make next?
Give this a try and I’d love to see what you use in your recipes to keep those leftover herbs and ingredients from going to waste!
Leftover Rice Mochi Balls
Yield: 16 mochi balls
1 cup of leftover short grained rice, no salt or butter added
1 cup of minced green onions or scallions
1/4 cup of fresh cilantro, leaves and stems
1 tsp of fresh wasabi paste
1.5 tsp of wasabi seasoning (you can make your own with 1/2 tsp of kosher salt, 1/2 tsp of wasabi powder and 1/2 tsp f sesame seeds)
1 tsp of oil
1 tsp of rice vinegar
Preheat the oven to 425F.
Combine the all the ingredients into a food processor or blender.
Blend together until all ingredients become a fine paste. If the mixture looks too dry, you can add a little bit of water (1 tsp at a time) to help loosen it.
Spoon out the rice mixture into a pastry bag or plastic bag, pushing the paste into the corner of the bag. Trim the corner off and use the bag as a piping bag.
Squeeze about 1 tbsp amounts onto a baking sheet, making sure you leave a minimum of 1” between each of the balls.
Place into the pre-heated oven and bake for 25-30 minutes until the tops are slightly golden and the balls have puffed up.
Serve immediately!