Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Faux rice cake and eggs

I thought Akemi and Saya were going to come over. They thought I was going to come over. No problem, that just meant we got to eat 2 snacks~!
The first course was dessert: We made "rice cakes" or mochi in Japanese (mwa ji in Chinese) out of milk and cornstarch. Note the absence of rice in that simple ingredient list :-) I found out that you can also make the cakes with soy milk. The toppings are some ground soybean flour (tastes like peanuts)mixed with sugar and some sweet red bean soup. The combination was perfect. And it's pretty healthy. Not much fat or added sugar.

To make:
200 ml milk or silk
2 rounded tablespoons cornstarch

Stir these ingredients together in a saucepan on high heat for a few minutes until it begins to thicken (don't stop stirring.) Take off heat and keep stirring. When it forms sort of a creamy pudding texture, stop stirring and let it cool for a few minutes. For toppings:
3 tablespoons soybean powder (buy it at an asian grocery, it's the color of cornmeal) mixed with 1 teaspoon sugar
or drizzle with honey. Not exactly sure how to make the red bean soup, but I think it just involves boiling some red beans in sugar water then letting it cool down.

I made this dessert again Thursday night after eating at Hananoki with KNE gals. Then Joe and I made it again for lunch Friday. We're hooked!

I don't really need to tell you how to make these, do I?
Boil eggs, dunk in ice bath, peel shells, slice eggs in half. Put yolks in a bowl, whites on a plate or tray. Mix yolks with rice vinegar, sugar, salt, oil, mustard and pickle relish to taste. Sorry, I don't measure things. Mixture should be fluffy, so add more liquids like pickle juice or oil to fluff if it still seems cakey. Scoop mixture back into whites and sprinkle paprika and dillweed on tops.

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