Jeungpyeon 증편

Hey guys, I have exams in two weeks so this might be my last post for a while, but we will see how I go.

I recently came across a very cute looking dish, the name of it is Jeungpyeon.

Jeungpyeon 증편 is a type of rice cake made by kneading rice powder with milky rice wine, garnishing it with jujubes, chestnuts, pine nuts and stone mushrooms, and then steaming it in a cake mold. Jeungpyeon is a good rice cake for the summer because it is fermented with wine, and does not spoil easily. It has a unique wine aroma, slightly sour taste and soft texture.

Jeungpyeon is a variety of tteok (Korean rice cake), made by steaming balls of fermented dough made from rice flour and rice wine such as makkeolli. It is one of the varieties of tteok that is typically served during the summer, because its sweet and sour taste is believed to be refreshing in hot weather, as well as to aid in digestion. While it is not certain that when people began to eat jeungpyeon, but there has been songhwa (상화), a similar tteok made by fermentation since the Goryeo period.

It is not that hard to make, and compared to Songpyeon much simpler. IF you make it right it looks really pretty, almost too pretty to eat. But it is said to be good for you, so it is not a bad thing to try when you have time.

Anyways, to get started...

Ingredients
- 250 g non-glutinous rice powder
3 g (¼ tbsp) salt
- 50 g (¼ cups) milky rice wine
- 100 g (½ cups) tepid water (40 ℃)
- 5 g fresh yeast
- 40 g (¼ cups) sugar
- 2 ㎏ (10 cups) rice wine cake steaming water
- garnish
8 g (2 ea) jujube
1g stone mushrooms1.7 g (½ tsp) pine nuts
1 g pumpkin seed
- coloring
yellow
7.5 g (½ tbsp) water
2 g (1 ea) gardenia
pink color7.5 g (½ tbsp) water
3 g strawberry powder
- 13 g (1 tbsp) edible oil

Preparations
1. Sprinkle salt over the rice powder and sieve through fine mesh two times. Add milky rice wine, tepid water, fresh yeast and sugar to the rice powder. Mix them with wooden scoop thoroughly. Place it in a container, cover with poly-vinyl film, electrical thermo-floor and thick blanket. Maintain the temperature within 40~45 ℃.

2. Ferment it for 2 hours. When the dough swells up, stir it strongly and draw the air out. Ferment it again for another 1 hour (470 g).

3. Wipe the jujube with damp cotton cloths, cut the flesh round, make it into flower shape. Soak stone mushrooms in water for 1 hour, wash it by rubbing, wipe water with cotton cloths, roll it up, and shred it into 0.1 cm-thick.

4. Remove tops of the pine nuts, wipe the nuts with dry cotton cloths. Halve it lengthwise to make scale-like pine nuts. Wipe the pumpkin seeds with dry cotton cloths.

5. Halve the gardenia, soak it in water for 1 hour for yellow color. Dissolve the strawberry powder in water for pink color.

Method
1. When the 2nd fermentation completed, divide the dough into 3 parts. Leave one part for white, and color one part of the dough with 1.5 g of gardenia water in yellow, the other part with 2 g of strawberry water in pink.

2. Put the dough in the cake mold. Garnish with jujube, mushrooms, pine nut and pumpkin seeds (18 ea).

3. Pour water into the steaming pot, heat it up for 9 min. on high heat. When it is steaming, turn off the heat, put the cake mold in the pot. Let it sit there for 10 min. for third fermentation(water temperature 83 ℃). When the dough swells up again, steam it for 20 min. on high heat, another 10 min. on low heat.

5. When it gives off steam, take out the cakes and coat with edible oil.

And there you have it, pretty jeungpyeon to eat during the summer..or really just whenever you want.

Anyways, as I said before it is really pretty if you make it right.

And this is it from me today, I'll try my best to keep on blogging when I have exams, but I really should be putting my all into these exams. After all they all count towards whether I get into a good University of not.

Bye, stay warm, be healthy and enjoy your food!!

Kimchi Sujebi 김치 수제비

So, I did a summery/spring type dish last week. OK, it was a summer dish. But I know that the weather in Korean should be getting colder as Winter is approaching...ok I hear that it is still quite warm and the moment as some people are just hoping that it will get colder soon..*hem hem not mentioning names*

Anyways, I hope I can do I dish that you can enjoy in Winter...something to enjoy when the cold strikes. So the dish is going to be kimchi sujebi (김치 수제비). Sujebi is the actual dish, but I'm going to tell you guys about the Kimchi version because
1) I LOVE kimchi
2) I think it tastes better

I want you guys to keep in minds that this is not the only way to cook the dish, there are other versions of it that you can make. And really, you can put practically anything that you want in it, But this is my version :D

It has been a while since I have done one of these, but here is a kinda history lesson on the origins of sujebi.

It is a traditional Korean soup consisting of dough flakes roughly torn by hand, with various vegetables. The flavor and recipe resemble kalguksu, except that the latter is made with noodles rather than wheat flakes. It is commonly considered a dish to consume on rainy days, along with bindaetteok. (or you can always eat Pajeon, refer to the recipe on my site)

The broth for sujebi is usually made with dried anchovies, shellfish, and kelp. In order to obtain a rich, umami flavor, the ingredients should be simmered for many hours. Added to this broth are soft noodles and various vegetables or kimchi, most often zucchini and potatoes.

Korean people began to eat sujebi and guksu (국수 noodles), both dishes made of wheat flour, from the early Goryeo period, but the name sujebi dates from the mid Joseon period.

From the Joseon period, people started making various types of sujeobi according to various purposes. Sujebi is today considered a typical commoner's food, but in the past, it was relatively rare and used for special occasions especially janchi.
In North Korea, sujebi is called milgaru ddeudeo guk (밀가루뜨더국), which is the words comprising three words: milgaru (밀가루; literally "wheat flour") + ddeudeo (뜯어; literally "tearing" or "torn") guk (국; literally "soup").

Sujebi is also called different names in different parts of Korea.

Anyways, enough of the history lesson, on to the actual dish itself.

Ingredients
Flour
salt
water
vegetable oil
dried anchovies
potato

onion
green onion
kimchi
garlic
gochujang
sesame oil

Method

For the Flour
1. Combine 2 cups of all purpose flour with ¾ cup water, ½ ts salt, and 1 TBS of vegetable oil in a large bowl. Knead by hand for 10-15 minutes until the dough gets softer and sticks together firmly.
2. Put the dough into a plastic bag and keep it in the refrigerator.

For the Stock
1. In a shallow pot, place 3 ½ cup water, ½ cup chopped kimchi, 2 TBS kimchi juice, 1 medium sized potato (peeled and cut into chunks), ¼ cup amount of sliced onion, and 5 large dried anchovies (after removing the heads and guts).
2. Close the lid and bring to a boil for 10 minutes over medium high heat. Lower the heat and simmer another 10 minutes.
3. Chop 1 stalk of green onion and set aside.
4. Take out the dough from the refrigerator and knead a few more minutes until the dough gets smooth and silky.
5. Put the dough back into the plastic bag.
6. Open the lid of the boiling pot and take out the anchovies and add 1-2 TBS hot pepper paste. Stir it with a spoon.

Making Kimchi Sujebi
1. Put the dough in your left hand, and pull and stretch it with your right. Get it as thin as you can. Then tear it into bite sized pieces with your right. Drop it into the boiling soup. Repeat this until the dough runs out.
2. Close the lid and boil it for a few more minutes to cook the dough
3. Turn the heat off and add the chopped green onion and a few drops of sesame oil.
Serve hot!

And there you have it, a hot dish that you can savour when the Winter chill arrives in Korea. This is not too hard to make and it is sure to bring back memories of you childhood for you.

That is it from me today. Please do enjoy this dish when it get's hotter, and I will continue to experiment with dishes that will suit both Winter and Summer so everyone will have a reason to visit this site. ^~^