Rice cake "mini" spring roll 餅のミニ春巻き

I saw this one in e-recipe. I meant to make a similar dish with cheese but I thought this was very interesting and perfect for using up the left over mochi 餅 or rice cake from New Year. I made this one weekend as a starter dish. Since I did not have spring roll wrap or skin, I used an American style square "gyoza" or wonton skin instead.

The inside has mochi wrapped in a seasoned nori sheet which was smeared with yuzu-koshou　柚子胡椒. I served the rolls on a bed of baby arugula. I poured a small amount of the peanut oil in which the rolls were cooked plus a splash of soy sauce over the arugula to make an impromptu dressing and to slightly wilt it. 

Mochi: I cut a square of mochi or kiri-mochi 切り餅 into 5 equal size sticks.

Nori: I just used a prepackaged and precut "ajitsuke-nori" 味付け海苔.

Since, the gyoza skin was a bit too small to wrap the mochi sticks or the nori, I used two together staggered like seen in image #1 below. I moistened the overlapping parts with water so that two sheets would stick together. I placed the nori on the gyoza skin (#1) and smeared Yuzu-koshou on the nori then put on the mochi stick (#2). As I rolled I moistened the overlapping gyoza skin and made tightly wrapped mochi sticks (#4).

Using a small non-stick frying pan with peanut oil (1 tbs) on low heat (#5). I turned them every 30 seconds or so initially so that all the overlapped skins got cooked evenly and held together (#5). Once all the sides were fried, I let it cook a longer time on one side (1 minute or so on each side) until the skin was brown, crispy, and the mochi was soft (total of 5-7 minutes). When I saw soft mochi starting to come out from the seam and knew it was done (see the very first picture in the beginning of the post).

This is a very nice dish. The gyoza skin was very crispy and the mochi was nicely soft but not too soft or too sticky. The nori and yuzu-koshou added some spiciness to the nice flavor. My wife could not figure out what was inside. She thought it was some kind of cheese. This is a very good way to use up left over mochi.

This dish will go with any drinks but we happened to be having Ladera Howell mountain Cab 2007. This wine was an excellent California Cab (I will give 91-92) but it is overhyped and 2007 may not be the best year for them.  At this price point, it is not cost effective (low PQR or Price-Quality-Ratio). We can have a similarly good Cali cab at 1/3 of the price for that matter.