Let me start this post by saying for my birthday in July I was given a mochi maker. In my mind I pictured myself making amazing mochi, dango, filled mochi treats and all the other amazing mochi based foods. So far we've used it three times, but each time has been an interesting experience. While not what I imagined it's still been pretty good. Also the lack of use isn't because I don't like mochi or what we've had so far it's just a process to get everything prepped. If you want fillings you generally want them done before hand, for the mochi itself there's the washing of the rice, and then soaking it for 6-12 hours (I generally just do this overnight). First time making it was the trial run. I definitely had high expectations of how it was going to be. I was going to make mochi and fill it with red bean paste (all home made of course). The visions of grandeur that filled my head were sadly not the outcome. I had to figure out the machine... well step one steaming the rice was no problem. The pounding I figured was like the steaming (timed by the machine), It wasn't. Pretty sure the mochi got over pounded and ended up being very soft. There is such a thing as mochi being too soft. Also fresh mochi hardens up pretty quick! I had most of the filling finished, but those beans take a lot longer to cook than I was anticipating. I could go in to details, but let's just go with the filling was a disaster...filling was nixed. We ended up enjoying the mochi dipped in soy sauce.
This brings us to experiment 2! Teobokki...I made it the standard way earlier in the summer making Korean rice cakes to put in it (lots of work) and it was pretty good. I figure why not try mochi instead! Made the stew and the mochi plopped the mochi in... as one can expect it wasn't quite what I pictured...the mochi took on the consistency of melty mozzarella cheese. It wasn't bad, but a little hard to eat and I might have been a bit heavy handed with the Korean pepper flake. On the bright side we did discover rolling pieces of fresh mochi in soybean powder mixed with sugar is delicious! Our experiments this time wasn't over yet. Mochi can be left in a cool dry spot for a few days and be fine. This is generally how to prep it for grilling....fairly certain I let it sit just a bit too long...while it properly puffed and cooked up it was to put it nicely tough as a rock.
Now we're onto last night experiment 3! Moonfini was over and we figured we'd make some mochi and attempt dango....I have to say this makes me chuckle just thinking about it. I did some research to find out if fresh mochi could be used for dango or if you HAD to use the rice flour mix. I couldn't find an answer anywhere so I shrugged and said what the heck let's do it. Mochi made! Rolled into balls to toss into boiling water. Water boiling mochi appeared to go as planned! Placed into the ice water to halt the cooking... mochi seemed...sticky and softer than I anticipated. Placed mochi on bamboo skewers (first mistake was made....didn't soak the skewers). Put the skewers on the mesh tray! (second mistake using a mesh tray). Popped them in the toaster oven to cook. Well I'm sure you can imagine what happened... if you guessed the skewers caught on fire you're wrong! Ha! They did get really hot though and seemed to be the only thing toasted. The mochi had puffed a bit, but the real trouble was that it had decided to cook through and around the mesh. It was a bit of a mess to clean up. This has not dissuaded me though from continuing to experiment! We still have some mochi left from last night so today we'll attempt to grill one more time! Hopefully no one breaks a tooth, but it should be interesting either way. 
