Bourbon – Chocolate Ganache Mochi
Mochi is another one of those staples in Asian cuisine that has gained a much wider western audience in recent years. While mochi is somewhat specific to Japan, many Asian cultures have their own variation of the item that involve sticky rice in some form or another. I won’t get into the debate of who created what, just know that it’s very common in Asia, and it’s catching on fast here. For a lot of people who have never tried it, or mochi virgins, the concept can be a little weird. Mochi is delightfully chewy, but even I have to admit that to someone who has never tried it, the texture or feel of it can be off putting. If not properly coated, the outside can be slimy and sticky at the same time, and it’s a bit hard to get someone to want to try something if it’s weird and jiggly.
Having grown up in a very traditional Asian family, mochi was very normal to me. In fact, I love anything with sticky rice, gluttonous rice and the such. I’m all about that super chewy, somewhat slimy texture. I know it sounds weird reading that, but it’s just so awesome. One of the benefits of mochi is that if you like it classic, you can simply have it as a giant ball of chewiness. If you like to change it up a bit, you can throw in a filling of some sort, like red bean, black sesame, ice cream, strawberry cream, the list goes on. I personally am a huge fan of ice cream mochi, but I learned the hard way that not all variations of mochi can be stored the same way. Some mochi is designed to be kept at room temperature, and putting it into a fridge or freezer makes the skin rock hard. Conversely, putting an ice cream mochi or certain daifuku (stuffed mochi) at room temperature makes the skin loose and slimy. Learn from my mistakes, folks. Do as I say, not as I do.
Today’s review is of the room temperature kind. I’ll be honest, I was a bit hesitant to try this at first. I love mochi, and I love chocolate filled stuff, but I wasn’t too sure if the two would combine well together. My biggest hang up though, is how much of a shelf life this product had. I am used to mochi that is made fresh or on premise, so packaged mochi in general is not something that draws me in. That being said, this was on sale, and I’m Asian so….here we are.
I got this bad boy at a specialty Japanese store, so we have the privilege of reading a translated nutrition label. Fun!
After a cursory glance over the ingredients (I don’t want to scare myself and get cold feet here), I crack open the pack to find that it’s 2 separate trays of four pieces each. It’s all nice and neatly packed, and it comes with a nice mini-fork for minimal mess. These mini-forks bring me back to my childhood of buying a two pack of ice cream mochi and stabbing clean through each piece, making sure I didn’t drop it or any of it’s contents anywhere. It was all for me, and none for anyone else, least of all the floor.
Upon the stabby stabby, the first thing I notice is how soft these are on the outside. Like, surprisingly soft. I would have expected these to be somewhat tougher than what I’m used to just because it’s a) packaged, b) close to expiration, and c) filled with chocolate. I did the typical poke test to see how bouncy and firm it was, and it passed the test.
Upon first bite, I found the outer mochi layer to be sufficiently satisfying and chewy. Not quite as chewy as a fresh one, but quite chewy for something packaged. The mochi layer melts away pretty quickly to get me to the chocolaty centre. And boy is it chocolaty. You know how sometimes you have a candy bar or a chocolate that says it’s filled with ganache, but realistically it’s just a slightly milkier version of the hard, outer shell? This was not that. This was both soft and creamy, while maintaining that lovely chocolate flavour. I guess I haven’t had too many positive experiences with western chocolate that advertise themselves as ganache, so I went in with low expectations for this one. This one delivers though. It’s got a very rich chocolate centre. So rich in fact, that you might want to pour yourself a glass of milk if you have one. It would definitely help cut the richness.
I’ve had a few experiences with Bourbon and some of their other snacks and none of them really impressed me. This changes that though. I would buy this again, but probably after I’ve tried all their other flavours. I’ve been told that they have a chocolate mint flavour mochi, which makes me very curious. I’d recommend this to anyone and everyone. Even if you don’t like mochi or have never tried it, if you like ganache then this is the perfect way to get into mochi. Worst case scenario, you chuck the mochi skin and just eat the ganache filling. I might buy it just for that.
