Monday, May 17, 2010

Favorite Thing



Still in the moving/traveling craziness. Nothing disrupts my sense of peace like having my kitchen put in an uproar. Hence, I shall mention the kitchen ickiness no more, well at least not for today. Instead we'll focus on one of my favorite things.


Warning: The following is a truly gross description of a really yummy food. 


I have a soft spot for food with imperfections. I love pizza with bubbles and burnt bits. I'm partial to lumps in my cream of wheat. I like my sunny side up eggs to be slightly scorched,although I also like a runny yoke. Try making that happen without giving yourself an embolism!

One of my all time favorite food mishaps is skin on my pudding. Every food recipe calls for laying plastic wrap on top of the pudding, thus preventing a skin from forming. Blasphemy! The skin is the best part. I will maintain that this holds true in almost all applications. Pork cracklings, yes'um. Turkey skin, guard it zealously or there will be none left for you. Hot chocolate skin, yummy. I know half of you are nauseous right now, but the other half, you're nodding along. You are my peeps.

My favorite thing has a texture just like the skin that forms on top of chocolate pudding or hot chocolate. What is this favorite thing? Mochi, yep you read right mochi. Fun to say, even more fun to eat. 



Technically, mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. To me, mochi is a form of Japenese ice cream covered in mochi dough. The ice cream is shaped into a ball and then covered in a type of rice paper dough (so going to try making this when I have a kitchen again). The rice paper dough perfectly mimics the skin like quality I love on top of my pudding. Plus, the skin allows you to eat the ice cream with your hands (don't think this is proper at all). Trust me it's awesome.



So far, I've only been able to locate mochi at Japanese restaurants and Whole Foods, but I'd be willing to bet my left arm that it's available in any Asian market. It's probably cheaper at an Asian market too. Whole Foods charges an exorbitant $8.99.

Small warning, do not allow any ice cream loving males near your ice cream, until you are absolutely sure you do not want anymore. Otherwise, you will be longingly blogging about the ice cream you wish you had more of.


*I would post about the raspberry sauce that accompanied this dessert, but it was a kitchen failure. Enough said. 

3 comments:

  1. You need to head down to Souf Philly sometime where the Viets are. You should be totally used to them because you were my roommate (not that I'm even remotely Vietnamese aside from heritage, really). There's a few supermarkets (and yes, they sell mochi ice cream) and you can eat lots of yummy food with fish sauce and stuff. Plus folks like my (racist) mom will be like, "Oh, look at that white girl trying our food! Isn't that cute??"

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  2. We need to eat out together. Every time I go to a Vietnamese place I feel like I'm ordering the wrong things. I'll ask the server to recommend something and all I get is a blank stare or a recommendation for a totally bland dish. I've been half tempted to order one thing from every section of the menu.

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  3. Mochi is so much cheaper than Whole Foods (3 bucks for a box), and EVERYWHERE in Chinatown and South Philly.

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