Dried mochi cakes are round in western and southern Japan, and square in the east and north =pic
To prepare the mochi to be consumed during the New Year period, steamed mochi-mai was pounded into mochi on the Dec. 29; the vigorous pounding action was supposed to beat ku (suffering) into submission. The pounded mochi was then spread out onto trays to dry out and cut into squares (kiri-mochi) in eastern and northern parts of Japan, or formed into small round cakes (maru-mochi) elsewhere; these dried-out cakes would last for several days.
Pounding mochi in a hollowed-out wooden log barrel with a big hammer used to be a back-breaking chore. It's still done mostly as a symbolic gesture in many parts of the country, but most people who bother to make their own mochi these days use an electric mochi-pounding machine.
Most mochi consumed at New Year's is prepared as ozōni, a soup with mochi cakes in it. Every region of the country, and possibly every family, has its own recipe for ozōni. For example, in Kyoto it is made with a white miso-soup base using round maru-mochi. In Hakata in Kyushu, pieces of buri (amberjack), taro root, shiitake mushrooms and so on are cooked in a clear soup, eaten with chestnut-wood chopsticks for good luck. And on the coastal areas of Hokkaido, ozōni is often topped with an extravagant variety of fresh local seafood, such as crabmeat and ikura (marinated salmon caviar).
Another way of enjoying dried mochi cakes is to cook them on a special wire grill called a mochi-ami until puffy and lightly browned, then to dunk them in a sauce or coating of your choice. My favorite is the classic isobe-mochi, square kiri-mochi coated in soy sauce and wrapped with a piece of nori seaweed. This kind of mochi can be enjoyed at any time of the year these days, with the easy availability of ready-made dried mochi cakes. And even though the sight of a mochi cake puffing up on a mochi-ami is very atmospheric, cooking the mochi in a toaster oven works just as well.
A word of warning before you dive into your mochi. Every year, several people — most of whom are elderly — are rushed to the emergency room after choking on mochi. Mochi is actually the leading edible cause of death by choking, far more than foods that have been banned as choking hazards in some countries, such as konyaku jellies. Make sure to bite off small bits from the sticky mass and to chew well before swallowing. Keep in mind that the pounded mochi favored in Japan is a lot stickier than mochi made from rice powder, which is the norm in other Asian countries such as China.
There's one final mochi ritual to finish out the New Year: the day of kagami-biraki, or "opening of the mirror," which usually occurs on Jan. 11. The dried out kagami-mochi cakes are broken up with a hammer, never cut with a knife — cutting a sacred offering is considered to bring very bad fortune. The pieces are often cooked in sweet azuki bean-paste soup as shiruko, but when I was growing up my mother would always break up the pieces further, leave them out to dry out completely and then deep-fry them to turn them into kaki-mochi, or crispy rice crackers. A perfect start to a brand new year.
Makiko Itoh is the author of "The Just Bento Cookbook" (Kodansha USA). She writes about bentō lunches at www.justbento.com and about Japanese cooking and more at www.justhungry.com.
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