Mmmm Mochi

This past summer, I fell in love with Korean food, especially tteok, a glorious glutinous rice ball sometimes filled with sweet bean paste, or rolled in sesame, or studded with walnuts. I am pretty sure I have been searching for tteok my whole life, binging on refined sugar gummie bears in University, super-sweet morasitas in Colombia, and not to mention spurts of licorce addiction, sour keys, sour kids, real fruit gummies, goodies and the occasional dino-sours. I LOVE chewy sweets! And tteok is not only healthier, with a lot less sugar and even better chewiness, it is the best form of chewy I have ever tasted.

When I arrived in Hong Kong, I looked for tteok treats everywhere I went, and sadly couldn't find any. Packaging here can be indecipherable, pictures don't tend to sell me, and local bakeries had nothing resembling Korean tteok. But I was relentless. One day in a wet market I found a package of 4 softly-white glutinous balls, with a circumference comparable to a tennis ball, squished into a saran wrapped package. It was lightly dusted with powder on the outside (a good sign) and when I bit into it I was joyously surprised to find a sticky sesame and shredded coconut filling surrounded by familiar chewy tteok. This was amazing! But aside from that wonderful day in the market, I have not been able to track down a consistent supplier of tteok. How could this be? Hong Kong is the center of the Asian Universe, there had to be tteok somewhere.

And then about a 2 weeks ago I learned something that changed my Hong Kong life. Mochi. Yes, there is tteok here (of course), and it is everywhere, it is called Mochi. Now that I know what I am looking for, I find everywhere I go. In my cupboard, at the moment, you can find Japanese-style green tea mochi, black sesame mochi, red bean mochi and even peanut mochi.

Mmmmmmmmm mochi