Red Bean Mochi - 紅豆麻糬

Did you know that mochi in Japanese means cookie in Chinese?

This was my first attempt at mochi, based on mom's recipe. I'm still looking for the perfect recipe.

This cooks about 15 large mochi.

Ingredients
1/2 box mochiko rice flour
1.5 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 can chunky red bean paste (tsubu an)
potato starch

Instructions

1. Mix your sugar and water together in a large bowl.
   
2. Slowly add your mochiko flour in with a bulb-shaped wisk will it's completely mixed.
   
3. Pour your mix into a rice cooker container. That's the container you put into your rice cooker.
4. Put that onto a steamer and steam on medium boil for 30-40 minutes. It is done when you stick a chopstick in and it comes out clear.
   
5. Wait for it to cool a bit. You don't want it completely cold though.
6. Prepare two plates. One with potato starch, the other covered with parchment paper to avoid dough sticking to plate.
   
7. Wet your hands. Stuff the red bean paste into your mochi dough.
   
8. Toss it into the potato starch. Cover well.

Notes

1. From my research, the flour to water ratio is 1:1. I havn't figured out the sugar to flour ratio yet. You can cut down on the sugar since the red bean paste is really sweet.
2. My steamer could not accommodate the rice cooker container. So I used the little container that you can put on top of that instead. According to mom, the time varies depending on the type of container you use, how thick its walls are, etc.
3. Some water may form at the top when your mochi is cooked, just pour it out.
4. To stuff mochi, I wrapped it as I would a pork bun. You try to form a little ball, flatten it with the edges thinner than the middle. Scoop a large spoonful of red bean paste. Usually in an amount that seems too big for the dough. Then push the paste down while you bring the edges together into the middle. Twist the middle shut.
   
5. When you toss it into the potato starch, cover it as much as possible and you can then shape it into a rounder ball with the ugly side on the bottom.
6. It's up to you to figure out if you like big or small mochi and make them accordingly. I've found that it's better to make smaller ones because the paste is very sweet and the mochi rice makes you feel stuffed if you eat too many.