Yugwa (유과)

So, my exams have finished and to celebrate I'm going to post a dish up. If you look at the time stamp for this post you are probably going to wonder why I am doing this during school hours. It is because I got my wisdom teeth removed yesterday so I'm at home recuperating from it all. And to past time I am writing a post ^^

Today I am going to tell you guys about another Korean dish. It is going to be Korean Hangwa's (한과) or for this post specifically Yumilgwa(유밀과). The name is now more commonly Yugwa (유과) in it's shortened form. I know that these are traditionally eaten at Chuseok, but I just can't wait to share the recipe with you guys. Feel free to try it for next year's festivities.

So the history behind hangwa is that the word has two components: han and gwa.

Gwa means “confectionery”. Sources disagree in their interpretation of han in this word, that is, whether it means “Korean” and whose hanja is 韓 or the one that means “Chinese” and whose hanja is 漢. Most sources, such as several major commercial online dictionaries and encyclopedias, interpret hangwa as “韓菓” (“Korean confectionery”), counterpart of yanggwa (洋果), Western confectionery.

Contrariwise, the internet edition of a standard dictionary by the National Institute of the Korean Language, South Korea's official language regulating body, has “漢菓” (literally “Chinese confectionery”) with a definition that differs from the one given in other sources and this article, calling it a kind of yumilgwa, which is also variety of Korean confectionery, instead of the other way around. This dictionary makes no mention of “韓菓”, whether as an alternative hanja spelling or in a separate entry.

My simplified version of it is that the term "han-gwa" literally means cake or cookie. They are basically cooked with oil and honey and then coated with things like sesame seeds or coconut flakes or thick grains of sugar.

Some are sweeter than others. Some melt in your mouth and others are quite chewy.

Anyway, enough of that. It is time to tell you about the recipe. Today I am going to show you how to make Yugwa because I think that it is the easiest one to make at home.

Ingredients
1 kg of rice cakes (tteok) preferably the tube shaped ones
1 kg of sugar
5 slices of ginger
seasame seeds

Method
1. Roll the rice cakes so that they are flat.
2. Prepare a frying pan and oil for that they tteok can be fried. It is best to have two pans prepared.
3. Set the flame to a medium heat and pour vegetable oil into the pan.
4. When the oil is hot enough place a handful of the rolled tteok into a frying ladle.
5. Fry it until it begins to puff.
6. Transfer it to the next pan and fry until it is golden brown and puffed out. Be careful to not let it burn.If the oil heats up too quickly, you can turn it back down to a low heat.
7. Repeat that for all the tteok.
8. When all the tteok has been fried, set it aside and let the oil drain.
9. To prepare the sugar syrup to coat the tteok, put the sugar and and ample amount of water into a pan. You want enough sugar so that the syrup is not too thick.Place you slices of ginger in at the same time.
10. Let that cook and when all the sugar has dissolved be careful to not let the mixture burn. Turn the heat off when the mixture is ready. Set it aside and let it cool.
11. When the sugar syrup has cooled, and the tteok has had the oil drained, place spoonfuls of the tteok into the syrup and coat it in syrup.
12. When it is coated fish it out and place it into the sesame seeds. Let the tteok be coated in the sesame seeds. Repeat this for the remaining tteok.

And there you have it. A delicious dessert that you can serve during Chuseok and also when you have guests at the house. If you don't want to have ginger flavoured yugwa you can always not put it in.

I hope that you like this recipe, and I'll post another recipe soon. Stay healthy and be happy.