Help with different cultural foods, Chinese and Japanese?

Question

Hey, my friend claims that this sesame rice ball with sweet stuff inside is mochi. I thought mochi was the ice cream thing...and that the sesame ball is "gin doi".

She brought in this sesame ball...it has sesame seeds and such, just like the ones served in Chinese Dim Sum.

Is it Chinese or Japanese? And is it Mochi or Gin doi?

http://d1.biggestmenu.com/00/00/5b/cfab3bdd7ca790ba_thumb.jpg

Here is a picture of what she calls mochi, but what I believe to be gin doi. If anyone can give me GOOD proof that I can print out and show her to school you're automatically best answer.

Answer 1

Mochi is the gooey stuff on the ice cream not the ice cream itself. Both of them can be called mochi.

Answer 2

mochi doesn't need to have ice cream inside.....but it sure tastes better if there is!

Answer 3

its chinese dimsum, a mochi has icecream inside it and its not deep fried. but that picture is deep fried and has sesame seeds on it

Answer 4

Well, I'm not certain what the sesame thing is, but it looks nothing like mochi.

Mochi is a steamed sweet rice confection which may be filled with various fillings (one of my favorites is mashed azuki beans).  It is Japanese.  Examples: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&sa...

It sounds like gin doi is probably Chinese.

And yes, a google image search reveals your sesame thing: http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=...

Answer 5

That picture is jin deui.  The big difference is that it's deep-fried, and made from rice FLOUR, and not just rice itself.  Regular mochi is not fried normally (and certainly isn't normally stuffed with ice cream either).  Jin deui is made of dough, and mochi is still rice.

Answer 6

You are both right.

Mochi -  glutinous rice cake

Mochiko -  glutinous rice flour

Mochi gome -  uncooked glutinous rice

Gin doi aka Chien Doi is one of the many mochi desserts (all using mochiko as an ingredient)  in her cookbook.  Mochi are boiled, baked, steamed, fried, microwaved -- depending on the variation..

The author Teresa is from Hawaii with a graduate degree in food science and management experience in Hawaiian hotels and restaurants and she is a mother of triplets (at the time she wrote the book).  The words and ingredients in her book reflects a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, Okinawan, Hawaiian  -- Asian Fusion cuisine.  That kind of cuisine is also popular here in the San Francisco Bay Area I might add..