Red Bean Mochi Recipe

With some leftover glutinous rice flour from my previous Muah Chee (chewy rice dough with roasted peanuts) attempt, I decided to go for a dessert which I enjoy loads, Red Bean Mochi.

This is one dessert which goes by many names; to the Japanese, it is known as Daifuku whereas the Koreans call it Chapssalddeok. Either ways, it is a dessert confection of mochi/chewy rice cake stuffed with a sweet filling, usually sweetened red bean paste made from red/azkui beans.

1st attempt - A little rough looking...

2nd attempt - Success!

There are two parts to preparing this dessert, the mochi skin and the red bean filling. You can prepare the filling before-hand and leave them chilled in the fridge until use. To make the mochi skin, I used the microwave method, which is fast and fuss-free.

Ingredients

For red bean filling (makes 24 bite size mochi)
100g of red bean (soaked overnight)
600g water
50g brown sugar
Pinch of salt

For normal mochi skin (makes 12 bite size mochi)
100g glutinous rice flour
150ml water
1 tbsp white sugar
Pinch of salt

For Matcha/green tea flavoured mochi skin (makes 12 bite size mochi)
100g glutinous rice flour
150ml water
1 tsp matcha/green tea powder
1.5 tbsp white sugar
Pinch of salt

For assembly
Corn starch/flour

Method
1. Bring to a boil the soaked red beans and water. Simmer till red beans are soft/mash-able stage and add in sugar. This takes about 1.5 hours and you can start to mash the beans using the back of ladle.

Red beans - swollen after one night of soaking

Almost done - Start to mash the beans!

Dry and firm and all mashed up

2. Leave the red bean paste to cool until warm to touch. Shape them into mini balls, using about 1 tbsp per ball. Cover and chill/leave aside until use

3. To make the mochi skin, mix flour and sugar together in a microwave friendly bowl and add in water. If making matcha/green mochi, add green tea powder into water before mixing with dry ingredients. Mix well and microwave for 30 seconds. Remove from microwave, stir/mix/pound/massage and heat for another 30 seconds. Repeat until mochi is sticky, clear and no flour traces remain. It took me a total of about 2.5 minutes

Before cooking - liquid-gluely like texture

Ready when chewy and clear

Now for matcha flavour...

Done!

4. Sprinkle corn flour liberally on top of mochi. This helps to prevent the mochi from drying out and from sticking onto your hands. Divide mochi equally into 12 portions (12 for normal mochi, 12 for green tea flavoured mochi). You can use a pair of scissors to cut them up or just pull them apart using your hands. 

5. Take one piece of mochi skin and wrap around the red bean ball filling. Pinch the opening shut and you can dust some corn starch on top

Tips
You can choose not to soak your red beans overnight but they will take a longer time to cook and will require more water, 800-1000ml for 100g of beans

You can use food colouring to colour your mochi skin. Just add it into the water and mix well with the other dry ingredients. A suitable colour would be red to make pinkish mochi skin.

Mochi should not be kept in the fridge as they will turn hard. Leave them at room temperature in an air tight container

If you do not have a microwave, you can steam the mochi instead. Also be generous with the corn starch as the mochi is very sticky and can be difficult to handle. The mochi will still remain soft and chewy even with the corn starch. You can also use potato starch in place of corn starch

When making the mochi skin, remember to keep checking every 30 seconds and pound the mochi to give it a chewy, bouncy texture - it will also give you a nice arm workout

My recommendation is to make two batches; normal mochi on day 1 and the green tea mochi on day 2. It really depends on how many people you are making for because mochi is best consumed on the day it is made. The red bean filling can be chilled and kept for several days so you can always make another batch of mochi skin when you need them. Alternatively, you can make half the serving size of the red bean filling.

If you do not have time prepare the red bean filling, you can use store-bought canned red beans or red bean filling. These are available at Daiso or the Japanese section of major grocery stores