Butter Mochi Recipe

Fairly popular in Hawaii, particularly among those locals of Japanese extraction, butter mochi is a product of two culinary traditions that met and inspired each other on the island of Aloha. Mochi (sweet rice cake) is one of the indispensable everyday staples for Japanese people, while butter is also such for the Americans. However, Mochi and butter at the first glance appear the most unlikely pair of ingredients to be cooked together into anything could please your palate. That was what I thought up to the moment for the first time had the luck to taste this butter mochi in Hawaii. It was so yammie with exotic taste that was in perfect harmony I had never known before, I asked for its recipe. Here is the traditional way of fixing butter mochi I learned direct from a grandma whose Japanese-American daughter is my long-time friend. She told me that my asking her for recipe was a really comforting act, since today very few young women there are willing to cook butter mochi (too high calories!). She was worrying about this valuable local tradition might be dying just like endangered species of a sort.