Gohei Mochi (五平餅) in Japan | Japanese Grilled Miso Rice Cake in a Stick
Love mochi? Gohei Mochi (五平餅) might be a brand new experience for your tastebuds. If you’ve only tried mochi outside of Japan, your image of this traditional treat probably includes an ice cream filling, or perhaps some sweet red bean paste. But mochi (餅) refers to a wide variety of products, all called mochi because of their base ingredient: pounded rice. Many of these foods aren’t even sweet!
What is Gohei Mochi? Gohei Mochi is a local specialty from the mountain areas of Chubu, including Aichi, Gifu, and Nagano prefectures. It’s like a skewered rice ball. The rice is mashed flat and then grilled on a skewer with a combination of miso and soy sauce poured on top.
Goheimochi is a specialty of Japan’s Chubu Region, a collection of prefectures in central Japan, meaning you’ll find it in cities like Nagoya or Toyota. It’s not just a regional name, though―what makes goheimochi so unique is that it uses ordinary short-grain rice instead of the special glutenous rice that makes up normal mochi. This change in rice gives it a totally different texture from your average mochi―less smooth and elastic, but with more of a firm bite! It’s sometimes compared to kiritanpo, another rice cake eaten in Akita Prefecture.
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What is this 😱