Languages
The Great Mochi Disaster of 2021
As part of our language programs, we like to create cultural experiences for the students. And students being teenagers, food-based cultural experiences are ALWAYS a winner.
I mentioned to my Year 7 classes that Mochi is an easy and delicious Japanese treat to prepare and consequently, at the start of every lesson since I mentioned it early in Term 1, the students have been asking “Are we making mochi today?” Of course, it is never nice to start a class by disappointing everyone, so finally, on Thursday 10 June, 2021- I decided the day had come.
Thursdays are great for me, because I have Year 7 classes in Period 4 and 5, with Japanese/Anime club in the middle at lunchtime. I thought preparing the mochi lesson on this Thursday was a particularly bright idea, because Mami sensei was also here (Mami sensei is our fabulous Languages Assistant, who spends one week at Kalamunda SHS, and the next at Applecross SHS). The idea was to get it all out of the way in one afternoon – a fun two and a half hours of making delicious and simple mochi. Signora Pennington saw me preparing all of the ingredients, and said “Don’t forget to get photos for the News Review and Echoes!”
The recipe for Mochi is as follows
| 1 and ½ cups of mochiko (glutinous rice flour) | ½ cup of potato starch (I used tapioca starch) |
| 1 cup of white sugar | ¼ cup of white sugar |
| 1 and ½ cups of water | ¼ teaspoon of salt |
| 2 drops distilled white vinegar |
Directions
In a medium bowl, mix together the mochiko, 1 cup of sugar and water until well blended. Mix in 2 drops of vinegar to soften (I forgot this bit). Pour into a microwave-safe dish, and loosely cover with plastic. Microwave for 8 to 10 minutes on HIGH. Remove, let cool until cool enough to handle.
In another small bowl, combine the potato starch, ¼ cup of sugar and salt. Turn the mochi out onto the plastic, and cut into pieces using a plastic or wooden knife. Metal knives tend to stick too much. Roll the pieces into the potato starch mixture.
You can see there are a couple of pressure points here when getting 30 12 year-olds to assist. First of all, the ingredients need to be very carefully measured, or else it throws out the cooking time. I only had one microwave, so I decided that doing four lots of the recipe would be just perfect – if we get them in and out of the microwave quickly. So, rushing the students, I got them measuring the mochiko, sugar and water. I was surprised at the amount of mochiko and sugar not making it into the bowl. Sue, one of our wonderful school cleaners, walked past and said how fun it all looked, but both her and I knew that someone’s workload was about to double. She brought me some paper towel, cleaning liquid and a rubbish bin.
Then it was time to get some of the mixtures into the microwave. The cooking times varied greatly as the measuring skills of some of our students were probably not at Japanese-precision cooking levels. It was also hard to tell how much longer the mixtures needed, but it was time sensitive and I was also hurrying to get everything done, so most of the mixtures were undercooked (also, I made this recipe once before and almost set a microwave on fire, so I was thinking that getting it out before that happened was a good idea).
Eventually I had one group of very impatient and excited students watching the microwave, and three other groups of students impatiently waiting for their mochi to cool – keen to stick their hands into the boiling mochi to get that bit closer to the final product. I have to be honest and say this was a particularly stressful time for me. The mochi itself, as I had missed a critical step in the process and undercooked it, had turned into very sticky gloop. All the students that touched the mochi had hands covered in an almost impossible to remove gloopy substance. Some of them decided to wash their hands in the drink fountain to avoid queues for the sinks, which ended up covering the whole fountain in sticky gloop, and blocking the drain, so then there was a bit of a flood in the walkway.
During the lunch break, the space we were working in was inundated with other students as the usual path they take was closed due to Year 11 and 12 exams. Suddenly the number of students interested in Japanese Club jumped from about 25 regulars to 100 students that happened to walk past and sense free sweets. And there was still 15 of my Year 7 students keen to finish making mochi. And there was mochiko, tapioca starch and sugar EVERYWHERE.
By the time Period 5 rolled around, I didn’t have the nerves to try it again with my other Year 7 class. There were just enough ingredients left for Mami Sensei to prepare and roll out 25 mochi balls for my students, and we watched a “How to Make Mochi” video on YouTube.
Sue asked me the next day if the students had had fun. I said that I am pretty sure they did have fun. She said “That’s the main thing!”
I won’t mention to her that now the students are all asking to make sushi.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos. Sorry, Signora Pennington.
Tori Maguire
Japanese Teacher