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.

Yeongyang-dolsotbap 돌솥 비빔밥

오랜만에? It has been a while since I last posted a recipe right?

It is now starting to get cold in SK, and with today it is the official arrival of winter. Although I have not finished exams yet, I really want to make a post to welcome the start of winter.

Today I will be introducing you to a dish that can be eaten in winter to help warm you up, and keep you happy.

"Yeongyang-dolsotbap (돌솥 비빔밥) is a nourishing dish of rice, ginseng, jujubes and chestnuts which are believed to have healing properties. Rice tastes best when cooked in a stone pot because it cooks evenly and stays hot in the pot." Source: Visit Korea Website

It is also known as hot stone pot rice. Basically it is rice that is cooked in a stone pot with vegetables and usually some egg, but today I will be introducing you to a more healthy version of it that involves ginseng and other health goods.

It main problem would probably be finding the pot, especially if you are in a Western country because there just doesn't seem to be many stone pots around.

Anyways, once you have overcome that hurdle the rest of the recipe is quite simple.

Ingredients
360g (2 cups) non-glutinous rice
90g (½ cup) glutinous rice
30g black bean, 60g (4 ea) chestnut, 32g (8 ea) jujube, 37g cultivated pine mushrooms, 24g (12 ea) gingko
10g (1 tbsp) pine nuts
25g ginseng (fresh wet ginseng)
600g (3 cups) water
seasoning sauce : 54g (3 tbsp) soy sauce, 14g (1 tbsp) minced green onion, 5.5g (1 tsp) minced garlic, 1.1g (½ tsp) ground red pepper, 6g (1 tbsp) sesame salt, 0.3g (⅛ tsp) ground black pepper, 8 g (2 tsp) sesame oil

Preparations
1. Wash the non-glutinous rice and glutinous rice cleanly, soak in water for 30 min., drain water on a strainer for 10 min. (non-glutinous rice 440g, glutinous rice 110g).
2. Wash the black bean, soak in water for 3 hours drain water on a strainer for 10 min (63g).
3. Skin the chestnuts, cut into 2~4 pieces. Wipe the jujube with damp cotton cloths, cut the flesh round, divide into 2~3 pieces.
4. Skin the cultivated pine mushrooms, slice it into 0.7cm-thick, maintaining the mushroom shape.
5. Preheat the frying pan and oil, stir-fry the gingko for 2 min. on medium heat with rolling, skin off. Remove tops of pine nuts, wipe the nuts with dry cotton cloths.
6. Wash the ginseng cleanly, remove the head part, cut into 2cm-long and 0.7cm-thick round.
7. Blend seasoning sauce.

Method
1. Put the non-glutinous rice, glutinous rice, black bean, chestnuts, cultivated pine mushrooms, ginseng and water into the stone pot, heat it up for 10min. on high heat. When it boils, continue to boil for another 3 min.
2. Lower the heat to low, add the jujube, gingko and pine nuts, boil it for 10 min. Turn off the heat, steam it for 10 min. for well-done.
3. When the rice is well-done, mix them thoroughly. Put in a bowl and serve with seasoning sauce.




That is it, it really is not that hard and even if you do find it hard think of all the health benefits from this one dish. The ginseng and roots in the dish will help your body fight the cold winter, especially since even Seoul is reaching the minus-degrees.

I hope that with this dish you can all stay health and warm this winter. Take care until my next post, hopefully after Monday when my exams have finished. Fighting!!
건강을 유지하시기 바랍니다!!

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. ^~^