Continuing our Spring celebration, seventyfive has made some mugwort (aicao) mochi filled with red bean paste; aici. Mugwort mochi are a common snack that’s eaten during Qingming Jie (Tombsweeping Festival). As children, we’d always look forward to eating these sweet, green treats.

Looking for a taste of childhood, we decided to make some this year and share our recipe.

With our recipe you will be able to make 6 aicao mochi:

100g glutinous rice powder
20g wheat starch
8g mugwort powder: fresh mugwort and mugwort powder are hard to get in the UK, you can grind dried mugwort herb and make them into a tea with the water if you like the mugwort(yomogi) taste. They will look slightly brown but still very delicious. Otherwise, you can instead use matcha powder, aojiru powder or even spinach juice to get the green colour.
80g room-temperature water
150g red bean paste: we make our own red bean paste, but they are easily available from asian supermarkets.
Medium team basket
Parchment paper or silicone sheets for steaming

Instructions:

Add the mugwort powder to the water and mix well, let powder soak in water.

Combine the glutinous rice flour with wheat starch, mix well

Add the water to the flour mix and mix into a dough with a spatula

Once all the dried flour is mixed, use your hands to knead the dough until smooth

Measure six 25g of red bean paste for each mochi, form each into balls

Measure six 40g of mochi dough mix and form each into balls

Form each mochi dough into a cup, place the red bean paste in the cup. Holding the cup in one hand and using the area between your thumb and index finger to gently push and squeeze the dough to wrap around the red bean paste. Use the thumb on the other hand to help cupping the red bean paste. Once done, close the the mochi skin, form the shape into a ball and place the closure side down in the steaming basket

Boil water in a stockpot, place the steaming basket on top of the stockpot and steam the mochi on high heat for 10mins

After steaming, remove the steaming basket from the pot and brush each mochi with a thin layer of neutral oil (vegetable oil).

Let the mochi cool down slightly but not completely(otherwise it might get too chewy). Enjoy it with some light brew tea. You can store them in the fridge and re-steam them for 5 mins when you want to have them again.

We have also made an instruction video below! Enjoy your mochi, we did… they didn’t last long.