What to do with mochi...this version is white, hard and puck-like in shape? My mother-in-law gave us some mochi that she received as a gift. It's actually the size of a small hockey puck, white and pretty hard. (I've only encountered soft mochi in this shape and generally they had some sort of filling). The only other time that I've seen hard mochi is once when I bought frozen mochi from the store (sold as one solid rectangular block, about 1/2" high). With this frozen mochi, they suggested baking it. When baked, it browned on the outside and puffed up a little bit.

Has anyone ever seen the white mochi pucks that I've described? How do you eat it? I'm going to attempt to steam one and try to bake another to test. Is this the proper way to cook this type of mochi?
I've actually found this post about mochi. They show the cakes that I've seen in the past and also the shape that I mentioned in my post.

It seems like you can:


grill them - they will brown a bit and rise.
boil them - they won't rise
microwave them


And the ways to serve it is with:


Butter+soy sauce (an interesting combo that I will try)
Rolled in ground sesame seeds + sugar or salt.
Rolled kinako (toasted soybean powder + sugar.)


UPDATE

Boiled

I cut them into about 1 inch x 1 inch pieces and threw them in boiling water. Boiled them for about a minute or so...then removed them to a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.

Dressings

I tried butter+soy sauce (1 TBSP melted : 1/4 tsp soy sauce) - It's actually pretty good!

I also ground up some black sesame seeds with sugar (1 TBSP : 1/2 tsp sugar)...this was actually my favorite of the two.