What exactly is suama and mochi?

Question

recipies, pictures and explanationns please (:

Answer 1

Mochi is a popular sweet in Japan.For Asians, mochi is the most important New Year’s food. The sticky texture of the rice cakes symbolizes togetherness. It also represents longevity, wealth and prosperity.Mochi also is placed on an altar or other place of honor as an offering at New Year’s. Two large mochi mounds are stacked on top of each other, topped by an orange or tangerine. The fruit symbolizes the togetherness of the generations and a continuing life of prosperity.

Rice flour(or self raising flour or add some yeast to it)—150 grams

Sugar(fine powdered texture)—150 grams

Regular water—120cc

Red food coloring—up to you

Sift the four if neccessary and put into a bowl

Add the water slowly and kneed the flour until it is dough like.

Put the dough into another bowl and sprinkle the sugar onto the dough. At the same time use your hands(or some other instrument) to kneed the sugar into the dough.

Break the dough into small pieces(the size is as you desire, but the smaller it is, the faster it cooks. About slightly smaller than your palm is recommended.)

Dilute the food coloring with some water and dip the dough into it or brush the coloring over the dough.(Whether you want to add the coloring is up to you.)

Put the round dough pieces into a steamer and cook until the dough has lost it’s stickiness and when you poke a finger at it, the dough rises up from the indent.(Of course don’t poke so hard that you make a hole!)

I hope this was helpful,Take Care!!! :)

Answer 2

I'm Japanese and when I read your question, I had a hard time to figure out what suama is because I've never heard the name before. But when I went on Japanese websites, I could finally figure out what it is. Even for Japanese people it's really hard to understand the difference between suama and uirou because they look very similar and they taste the same.

Anyway, suama looks like this: http://www.pref.chiba.jp/nourinsui/07kai...

Suama is made out of non-glutinous rice flour ( or jyoushinko or dumpling flour), hot water, and sugar. And it's shaped by Sudare (a bamboo matt---in the us this is known as sushi rolling matt) so  the outer shape looks very bumpy. The original coloring for Suama was actually white. But these days, people love to color Suama in pink or yellow other than just white.

Uirou ( http://www.h2.dion.ne.jp/~kekyo/tabi/uir... )is also made out of the same ingredients these days ( even though in the past people use raw sugar instead of Japanese white sugar to make it). But while Suama is kneeaded, Uirou is not kneeded but is placed in a mold and steamed after the ingredients are mixed together.

By the way,  some suama is not shaped by sudare. And it looks similar to daihuku ( http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%94%BB%E... ) which looks like this:http://www.godan1896.net/turunokomoti.jp...

This kind of Suama is called " Tsurunoko Mochi" whose shape is oval.

And if Suama is shaped like a bird, it's called " Torinoko mochi" which looks like this: http://tamagawaya-net.co.jp/goods/img/k_...

And about mochi...we have so many different kinds of mochi. So if I talk about mochi, it would be a long long story so I'm just going to point out the basic stuff.

Mochi is basically made out of glutinous rice flour  (or mochi flour) which is  pounded into paste and molded into shape. Mochi could be cooked for a meal or could be a confectionery. When we cook mochi, we usually cook mochi for new years' dish called Zouni or Ozouni which looks like this: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%94%BB%E...

Depending on a region, the way that people cook Zouni is different.

And for a confectionery, we usually add something inside mochi. Daihuku, for example, looks like suama but it has something inside. In the traditional style daihuku, we usualluy add sweet bean paste, but for modern style daihuku, we add diffrent kinds of ice cream, chocolate, flavored whipped cream, fruits like strawberries, peaches, melons, etc.

Anyway, if you wanted to know the difference between suama and daihuku, it's the flour.  Well... even some Japanese people think that suama is like Mochi. So it's not only you who wonder whether suama is mochi or not. And don't question why some suama like Turunoko Mochi or Torinoko Mochi is called Mochi because I don't really know why. To me, it just doesn't make sense to call that kind of suama mochi because mochi flour is not used for the suama.....