This reception in honor of National Foundation Day and Korea Day celebrated both contemporary interpretations of the nation's cuisine (smoked tofu; fluke with caviar; pumpkin porridge with pumpkinseed oil, roasted chestnuts, and dried jujubes) and classics (galbi, kimchi, bibimbap).
Among the traditional confections, or hangwa, were these humble cubes, prepared from steamed, pounded glutinous rice, called injeolmi. The coating is a powder of some sort of dried bean; the rice itself is seasoned, very gently, with oil previously used to fry shallots (my best guess). Injeolmi aren't very sweet; they're enjoyable more for their chewy texture, which reminded me of the Chinese-Malaysian-Singaporean muar chee (more often transliterated muah chee). I circled back for seconds.
Korean Cuisine Redefined
At the Korean Consulate, 335 East 45 (First-Second Aves.)
The powder looks like roasted soybean powder. Very fine consistency -- like ground cinnamon or cocoa, it's easy to breathe it into your windpipe.
Posted by: Miss Needle | October 08, 2009 at 11:49 AM