Green Tea Mochi with Red Bean Filling

Well, if you love mochi, you will be happy to know that these were incredibly easy to make!

I bought some prepared and sweetened red beans at my local Japanese market, Mitsuwa.

You could also make your own red bean filling from scratch, but I went with the easy option.

I know, it sounds strange.  Beans aren't something we normally associate with sweets, but it is well worth trying!  I fell in love with Japanese food a few years back when I had the luck to travel to Japan one summer with other art students from SDSU.  (Note to self: future  blog post with food pictures and stories from my trip...).  Anyways, whenever I taste the sweet adzuki bean flavor it takes me back to Japan..

So I followed a recipe from this blog: http://kirbiecravings.com/2009/10/matcha-green-tea-mochi.html

Ingredients
1 cup of Mochiko glutinous rice flour
2 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of green tea powder
2/3 cup of water
Red bean paste
Cornstarch/potato starch/or tapioca starch – for dusting

Directions
1. Take red bean paste and roll it into balls approximately 1/2 inch in diameter. (If you like a lot of bean paste in yours, you can make thicker balls.  I personally only like a little bit of filling, so I made my balls smaller.  Make about 8 balls.
2. In a microwave safe bowl, mix together mochiko glutinous rice flour, sugar, green tea and water. Mix well.
3.
Microwave the mixture on high for two minutes. Remove and stir quickly.
Return to the microwave and cook for another 1 1/2 minutes. I had to play around with the timing of this for a while.  The first time I overcooked the mochi and it was too hard. 
4. Scoop up a little more than one tablespoon of dough. Dust a plate or counter top with either cornstarch, tapioca starch or potato starch.
5. Dust your fingers and palms with starch and flatten a piece of dough while it is still hot and put in the filling, then wrap dough around the filling and seal the
opening with a tight pinch. Try to shape dough into a smooth round ball. Repeat until all dough is used up. Let the mochi cool before serving.

Here is a picture of the ingredients mixed together pre-microwaving:

Soooo I did run into a few problems with this recipe!  Well, first off, my red bean filling was a bit too soupy to roll into balls, so I ended up just using a teaspoon to just scoop it on top of the mochi.

Next problem was the microwaving times!  I followed the directions and microwaved on high for two minutes.  When I took it out of the microwaved it had hardened considerably and I wasn't able to "stir it quickly" because it was too hard!!  Luckily I was still able to mold it a bit at this point!  I just scooped some out, placed some red bean filling on top and folded the mochi over as best I could.  And Yikes! It was hot! So do use caution when handling.

Anyways, they ended up looking and tasting fine!

I guess the moral of the story might be that all microwaves are different and cooking times may vary!