Mochi!

While I was in California last summer, staying with my lovely American exchange family (from school in 2005) they hosted Shabbat dinner for lots of family friends and someone brought these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi_ice_cream
Not your traditional Jewish food, but really nice. Hooray for multicultural LA.

Here's the box:

And a cross-section


Many mochi!. Possibly fake, but very Japanese in that.

It seems that they're an adaptation of mochi, which originates in Japan. It is essentially glutenous rice paste with some sort of flavouring (often green tea), usually formed into balls or cubes or used to make other sorts of sweets. Ice cream mochi is a twist on the more usual "daifuku", mochi with a sweet filling, usually red or white bean paste.
I'd love to have ice cream mochi again, and to try some plain mochi. I'm not sure where I can get them in the UK but oriental supermarkets and Japanese restaurants seem like a good place to start. Until then I can console (or possibly antagonise) myself with photos.
Flickr seems to be a great fan of them, probably because they're photogenic and come in nice pastelly colours. Here's a selection (all CC license)


Complete with recipe link, this calls for a visit to an oriental supermarket.

A nice green one, reluctant to be blogged.


Some variety.

Here're a couple of fairly simple sounding recipes to finish off:
Extremely simple, possibly heretical, microwave version.
With red bean paste filling.

P.S. In my search I also found a lot of rather cute animals.