101 in 1001 - Roasted Chestnuts, Sesame Mochi, and Mango Daifuku

Roasted Chestnuts

Previously, I've written about food for the 101 in 1001 goal:

• 039. Try 10 foods/drinks I haven't tried before.

So here I am again, edging my total up slowly to six with the next three foods: roasted chestnuts, sesame mochi and mango daifuku. Technically I've tried mochi before, but it wasn't sesame mochi. And, technically, I've had daifuku before (it's something sweet wrapped in mochi, basically), but it was strawberry (ichigo) daifuku, which has a whole fruit inside it and is quite different. Therefore, I'm including these two as well!

Chestnuts - I like the deer on the packaging

Making steam vents

The first food I tried was roasted chestnuts. I didn't think it was that unusual to not have tried them before, but when I mentioned it to a friend of mine when someone was eating some on a show we were watching, they thought it was very strange. So, said friend bought me some chestnuts and, after poking the nuts with steam vent holes, we roasted them in the oven. 

The nuts took 12 minutes to cook on 180 degrees centigrade in a fan-assisted oven and most of them had split open by the end of cooking. This made peeling those shells off very quick and easy, but the remaining cases were simple to remove with a knife. The nuts inside were soft, a little crumbly, but very creamy at the same time. Although they were most definitely savoury, they also had a hint of sweetness about them too, so they'd probably go well with either type of food. 

Opened, roasted chestnuts

Whilst, I don't think they're something I'd have all the time, I did like them a lot and they made a nice treat!

Sesame Mochi

The next food I tried was purely by chance. For Christmas, I bought a friend a vegan sweet selection from Tofu Cute and, though it always consists of Japanese sweets and candy, is vegan and comes in a panda bag, the contents varies slightly from order to order. Friend very kindly let me try some of their haul, so I was able to have some sesame (goma) mochi.

Sesame mochi with black sesame seed filling

Mochi is Japanese rice cake made of mochigome, a short-grain glutinous/sticky rice. The rice is then made into the needed shape after being ground, steamed and pounded. It can be plain mochi in a solid shape, but can also be wrapped around various fillings. 

This particular type was coated in sesame seeds and filled with a paste made of slightly sweetened black sesame seeds. The filling was sweet enough to make it count as a dessert food, but still savoury enough to not be sickly. Also, even though each mochi is quite small, they were filling due to the rice/carbohydrate content, which was quite nice. I really liked these, but as with the chestnuts, would probably only have them as a treat now and then.

Mango daifuku

The third item of food I tried once again came via my friend being nice and allowing me to try one of the mango daifuku in their panda sweet bag. 

Mango daifuku

The mango daifuku consisted of mango jelly and a layer of "cream" inside mochi. This was much sweeter and richer than the sesame mochi and was unmistakably a dessert food. Whilst I liked both, I preferred the sesame mochi as I don't really like jelly-filled foods so much. I will probably opt for a different flavour of daifuku the next time, such as a mixture of other fruits and/or anko. It was nice though!

(Thank you to Miseria for taking the photos of the mochi/daifuku for me♥)

I have four more foods left to try now. Any recommendations?