hapa bento

Today is the last Monday of the month which means it’s more than a Meatless Monday occasion.

It’s #twitterfoodparty day and this month’s theme is corn!

I know, right?  So many options.  Corn is in everything!  Including this butter-mochi!

I ended up doing two dishes— this Corn Butter Mochi evolved while tweeting with the other foodies.  What a great bunch of people on twitter…always supportive and full of great ideas!

Anyway, I had tweeted the “Hurricane Popcorn Balls” first but I think this butter-mochi is the more exciting of the two so here goes…

Corn Butter-Mochi

Ingredients:

1 box mochiko

3 eggs

1 stick of softened unsalted butter

1 can of sweetened condensed milk (14 oz)  Not evaporated milk.

1 cup of powdered sugar

1 cup of sugar

1 can of creamed corn (15 oz)

1 tablespoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt (if you use salted butter, skip this)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Mix everything together and pour into 2 square cake pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.  The center should feel firm to the touch when done.  Allow to cool but not completely cold before cutting into desirable size.

Enjoy!

On to the Hurricane Popcorn Balls!

First of all, I don’t know why it’s called Hurricane Popcorn.  It’s a wonderful name for such an amazing emulsion of flavor.  I do know it’s from Hawaii; something that came about after I had moved to Washington, so if someone knows the story please tell me as it must be interesting.

But what I do know is that this is very yummy.  Sweet, salty, savory with lots of umami, all in one compact ball!

You can skip the ball part if you don’t want to deal with the sticky sweetness that’s needed for forming.   Another option is to just combine the popcorn, butter, arare and furikake…this is the original form of Hurricane Popcorn.

Hurricane Popcorn Balls

Ingredients:

2 bags of plain, unsalted popped microwave popcorn

1/2 cup of light corn syrup

1/2 cup of water

1 stick of butter

1 cup of sugar

pinch of salt (not too much, the furikake is salty)

1/4 cup  or more of nori fumi furikake

1 cup or more to taste of sakura arare (kakimochi, mochi crunch are other names) The sakura shape is the easiest when forming the balls.

Assembly:

In a heavy sauce pan heat the corn syrup, water, butter sugar and salt until at least 290 degrees.  Set aside.

Work the popcorn one bag at a time.  This gets cumbersome so I found it easier to work in small batches.  Place the popcorn in a large bowl or pan.  Carefully spoon some of the corn syrup mixture over the corn then quickly sprinkle some furikake and arare into the popcorn use a big spoon or paddle for this and be careful not to burn yourself.  The mixture is very hot.

Coat your hands in butter and start forming the balls.   Keep repeating this step until all the popcorn has used up.  If the mixture cools and hardens before completion, microwave to re-warm so the balls will stick together.  Again, be careful not to burn yourself.

So that was it.  That’s what I contributed to this month’s #twitterfoodparty.

Next month’s theme is ice cream!

Won’t you join us?

My twitter id is @hapabento

More butter-mochi recipes here.

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