MOCHI DANGO in SPRING COLORS

In spring you can buy three-color mochi dango. Apparently they are a traditional food for O-Hanami (cherry blossom viewing parties.)  The white ones are plain, and the green ones are colored with a herb named mugwort in English. It doesn't have any flavor that I can detect. It would be nice to think the pink ones were flavored with cherry blossom petals, but I couldn't taste it if they were. But they are good - soft and chewy and not too sweet. And they look pretty in spring colors. I love mochi.

ZENZAI

Zenzai is the Japanese answer to hot chocolate with marshmallows. On a freezing cold day when you want a warming drink, it's great. I love the mochi, but sometimes the sweet red bean soup is just too sweet for me.    Perhaps a pinch of salt might help.

GINGERBREAD MOCHI

Mochi is rice cake, made by pounding cooked mochi rice till it is sticky and glutinous. It can be cooked a number of different ways, for example, in soup, or toasted over a wire grill, and with many different accompaniments such as kinako (nutty flavored toasted soybean flour), or sweet red bean jam. Soft mochi is sometimes sweetened to make little Japanese style cakes, but in winter and around New Year plain unsweetened mochi can be bought for zenzai (made from sweet red bean jam, zenzai is the delicious Japanese counterpart for hot chocolate with marshmallows), toasted mochi, and a traditional New Year soup called zoni.

Sometimes I like to experiment by combining Japanese ingredients with Western tastes. Here is one of my experiments, putting a new spin on a Japanese New Year classic. Toast some squares of plain mochi till puffed and golden brown. Immerse them in simmering water for about a minute, then roll in a mixture of kinako, kurozato (dark brown sugar), a generous amount of dried ginger, and some chopped toasted almonds. The flavor is like gingerbread. Eat while it's warm, but be careful... every year a few Japanese choke to death on mochi! I recommend taking small bites and chewing well (which is what you ought to do anyway, right?)

New Year  mochi at Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto

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