For NYE, there was a bit of a party at home and the central thematic centered around the age-old tradition of making Mochi, or the action of "Mochisuki"
Mochi is the glutinous rice cake/substance that is made from glutinous rice which is steamed over water, then beaten and smashed together to form very sticky chewy rice.
Mochisuki requires a fire in the backyard to steam all the rice (LOTS OF IT)
A massive log with a deep bowl cut out in the middle, and a stone bash plate inset into the bottom of the bowl.
Timber mallets called Kine to smash all the rice together, causing all the gluten to release & adhere all the rice together.
It is actually hard work and the speeds which the pros do it is insane. We made many batches. We ate it fresh with a bunch of different toppings. Daikon(some form of root plant, nothing like it in Aus), soy, and a salted soy bean powder which is called kinako. I liked Kinako the most it seemed to compliment the texture best.
After all that all the guys went to go play some 10 pin bowling. I won the first round :P Then the rest of the afternoon was fairly relaxed with some sleep to prepare for going to the shrine at midnight, and the latter early wake up for sunrise.
Photos included consist of Mochisuki and bowling. Big couple of days so will break it up into more posts.
Fire pit + boiling water + two steam racks steaming sticky rice.
1 person squishes the rice down into a clumpy matter first. Steam was awesome.
After it's squished, 2 ppl then kind of knead it gently until it forms a sticky ball.
Good video showing the process of Mochisuki and bashing it.
Such a fun day and experience
Pulling it apart to roll into cakes or to eat straight up!
Amazake rice drink. Basically Sake (the alcohol) is the product of fermentation of rice and then filtered down. If you collected all that left over fermenting rice and add a bunch of sugar & cream it, you get Amazake. It's sweet and rice flavoured. You can definitely tell something is fermenting in it, not unlike a really fresh plain yoghurt, but it's not it a bad way. It's incredibly healthy with millions of good bacteria and they often used to give it to children instead of Sake when the parents were getting drunk so the kids could pretend they were drinking sake.
Strike? I won the first game, then the other games i let other people have a chance :P
Mako's Dad standing in front of the automatic shoe dispenser at the Bowling. If it was the wrong size you just put it in the chute and choose another one. So brilliant
