To make the dough, you’ll need a popular ingredient called mochi flour (aka mochiko). But what is mochi flour, exactly? It’s made from finely milled sweet rice, which is why it’s also called ...

To replicate that moment of discovery, I decided to make a mochi using a pureed cooked-vegetable base seasoned with kombu and mochiko, the glutinous rice flour used to make mochi, as a binder.