Sweets
Yaki Mochi
Yaki Mochi — leftover rice pan-fried with flour and miso
Leftover rice is mixed with flour and miso, shaped, and pan-fried into a simple snack — a way of keeping quick-to-spoil summer rice edible longer, with some households steaming or boiling it instead.
- Origin: Tochigi
- About 100 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Leftover rice mixed with wheat flour and miso, shaped into small ovals and grilled on a hot plate or in a pan — a plain homemade snack. The toasty aroma of miso and the chewy bite of rice are its charm, and many households mix in seasonal touches like corn, dried sillago, or green laver.
How it's made
Rice soaked briefly in water and lightly drained is kneaded together with wheat flour, corn, dried sillago, green laver, sesame, and miso, then shaped into ovals about 1.5 centimeters thick. They're pan-fried in a little oil over low to medium heat until lightly browned on both sides.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to have grown from a way of not wasting rice that spoiled easily in summer, keeping it edible longer once grilled. It's said to have started as a plain mix of just wheat flour and miso grilled by the hearth, with seasonal vegetables and other ingredients gradually added in, giving rise to a different yakimochi in each region and household.
Before you go
- How to shop in a depachika (department store food hall)A guide to browsing prepared foods and bento, choosing wagashi as a gift with a good shelf life, sampling etiquette, end-of-day discounts, asking for cold packs and wrapping, and finding your way around a depachika floor.
- At kissaten, cafes, and kanmi-dokoroThe difference between jun-kissa and chain cafes, the morning-set custom, and kanmi-dokoro staples like anmitsu and zenzai.
Dishes in the same style
- Abekawa MochiFresh-pounded rice cake is dusted in soybean flour mixed with sugar. Named for the Abe River, it's said to have been famous among Tokaido travelers as a teahouse specialty and to appear in the travel novel Tokaidochu Hizakurige.
- Iga ManjuSweet bean paste is wrapped in rice flour dough, then coated with dyed sticky rice grains. One account ties the name to the grains' resemblance to a chestnut's spiny husk, and in the western Mikawa region it's said to be offered to Hina dolls at the Doll Festival.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Tochigi
- Agemaki Yuba no NimonoFresh yuba sheets are layered, rolled into a log, sliced into rounds, and deep-fried before a slow simmer in a light broth — a Nikko dish built on the region's rippled yuba-making craft, served at New Year's and celebrations.
- Aiso no KanroniDace that gather to spawn each spring in the Naka and Kinu rivers, known locally as aiso, are slow-simmered in a sweet glaze until soft to the bone — food from a landlocked prefecture where river fish once meant protein.
- Ayu MeshiAlong the Naka River and other ayu-fishing streams, unseasoned grilled ayu is cooked into the rice — made for festivals and farm rest days, with any leftover fish skewered and hung by the hearth to keep.
- Battou JiruWheat dough is torn by hand into a miso soup simmered with seasonal vegetables — known by different names, hattou-jiru or dango-jiru, across the region, and long relied on when rice ran short.
- Chitake to Nasu no Abura ItameChitake mushrooms, which weep a milky sap when torn, are stir-fried with eggplant — a summer-only find tied to managed satoyama woodland, and also prized as a broth base for udon and soba.