What
is your favorite Korean food? There are a lot of delicious foods like Bulgogi,
Bibimbap. Among them, I will introduce Korean traditional rice cake. When we
make this, we make grains to powders and steam, boil or fry them.
First,
we see the nourishment of Korean traditional rice cake. It is nutritious
because it is made of various nuts and rice. Rice provides grape sugar which is
used for the major source of energy for our body and has dietary fiber which is
good for protecting constipation. Nuts contain protein and minerals which are
needed in growth period.
Second,
we see the kinds of Korean traditional rice cake. We can divide it into four
types depending on the method of making.
Steamed rice cake
This
type is the most basic method and attains 100 kinds of rice cakes. When we make
this type of rice cake first, we soak nonglutinous rice or glutinous rice in
water and make it powder. And then, prepare to steam rice cake in a clay pot.
At this time, we can make a lot
of different rice cakes according to the method of steaming. For example, if we
make shape before steaming rice cake, we can make songpyeon.
The
method of making this type is similar to steamed rice cake. However, we pound
rice cake after steaming it. Also, we can make various rice cakes depending on
what we do after pounding. For example, if we make shape by hitting mallet used
to pound rice for cake and then coat rice cake with powdered soybean and that is
injeolmi. In other case, if we make rice cake long and round by pounding, that
is garaetteok.
Fried rice cake
This
type is not steamed in contrast with steamed and pounded rice cake. We just
knead glutinous rice flour and make various shapes and fry it. In some cases,
we put filling like jujube or sesame into dough and fry it and that is
jooak. Otherwise, when we fry dough, we put some flowers like chrysanthemum or
rose on the dough and that is
hwajeon.
Boiled rice cake
The method of making this type is
similar to fried rice cake. After kneading dough, boil it in boiling water and
coat powders. Depending on the kinds of powders, we can decide the color of
rice cake. For example, if we use mung beans powder, rice cake will be green
and if we use black sesame powder, it will be black. We call it gyeongdan.
Today, we have a lot of foods in
contrast with the past time because of economic development. Also, there are
many western foods like hamburger or pizza. However, these kinds of foods have
more fats and are not good for health. Therefore, I recommend you to eat Korean
traditional rice cake. It is delicious as well as good for your health.
