Korean mochi (Vegan) -Chapssaltteok 찹쌀떡

Chapssaltteok (찹쌀떡) is a Korean style of mochi, made of sweet rice flour a.k.a glutinous rice flour. It was called ‘daifuku’ in Japanese and in Chinese version, it was called ‘muah chee’. ‘chapssaltteok’ and ‘daifuku’ was similar which they use red bean paste as filling, meanwhile ‘muah chee’ used crushed peanut and sugar as filling.

Filling: You can easily get red bean paste from any bakery store or make it yourself. Making red bean paste required quite a lot of effort but the taste is definitely different from buying in-store. I’ll recommend you to at least try making it so you can know the difference between homemade and in-store red bean paste. Also, you can experience the fun of making a red bean paste yourself.

Cooking rice cake: You can cook rice cake dough in a steamer or microwave. I used to cook it with a steamer which takes longer time and more equipment. Then, I found the idea of using microwave via internet and I tried it, it works very well. It was so much easier and quicker. Since then, I cook the rice cake dough with microwave.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of sweet rice flour a.k.a glutinous rice flour
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 3/4 cup of warm water
• red bean paste
• some potato starch – to sprinkle on the surface of a table and mochi

Instructions:

1. In a large deep bowl, combine sweet rice flour, salt, sugar and warm water. Mix well with a rice scooper, spatula, wooden spoon or anything preferred.
2. Mix until it forms a sticky dough (no liquid left but not too dry- sticky texture). Place the rice cake dough at the centre of the bowl.
3. Cover the bowl with plastic food wrap. Don’t cover the whole bowl, leave some space at the side to let the air flow out while cooking the rice cake in the microwave.
4. Put in the microwave and cook for 2 minutes.
5. After 2 minutes, take it out and mix the rice cake dough to let the other part of the rice cake cooked. Put it back in the microwave and cook for another 1 minute until no white flour is longer to be seen.
6. Knead the cooked rice cake as many times as you can; up to 50 times, 80 times. The more you knead the rice cake, the chewier it will be.
7. Sprinkle the surface of a table with some potato starch and put the cooked rice cake on the table. Sprinkle potato starch on the cooked rice cake to prevent it from sticking to your hand.
8. Roll both the rice cake and the red bean paste into balls. Flatten the rice cake and wrap the red bean ball. Seal it by pinching the edges with your fingers. Repeat with the rest of the rice cake.