If you’ve been following the Korean calendar then you know that it is Chuseok! Chuseok is held on the 15th day of the 8th month which means this year it is on September 21st. This holiday is similar to Thanksgiving in the United States as people gather with family members to give thanks for a successful harvest, enjoy food, and spend time with each other. My co-teacher told me that traditionally, everyone in the family would travel to the eldest son’s house to celebrate Chuseok. There they will have memorial services to honor their ancestors and visit their graves.
One of the most important foods that is eaten during Chuseok is songpyeon. Songpyeon are rice cakes filled with fillings such as sesame seeds, soybeans, chestnuts, red beans, and honey and are typically steamed over pine needles to give them a distinct taste.
This year the GICCE, Gwangju Institute of Creative Convergence Education, provided Gwangju’s foreign teachers with a unique opportunity to make songpyeon! They gave us each a songpyeon making kit that had all the supplies and ingredients we would need to make songpyeon. I picked up my kit, invited a friend over to help me make them, and got started!
The ingredients/supplies we were given in our kit included two types of rice powder, mugwort and normal, sesame seeds, sesame oil, two plastic containers, a very tiny spoon, a measuring cup, and two cloths to gift wrap our completed songpyeon in. We were also given a tutorial video on how to make songpyeon which was very helpful because we were absolutely clueless on what to do.
The first step to making songpyeon was adding hot water to the rice powder, then mixing it with a spoon, and eventually kneading it with your hands to form the dough. Once the dough was tough and in a ball form, we placed it back into the plastic container so it wouldn’t harden. We did the same with the other rice powder until we had two types of dough formed.
Then we took out one of the balls of dough and rolled it out in a line, trying to make it even as we did so. It reminded me of playing with Playdo. After we formed the dough into an even line, we cut it into eight similar sized pieces, or as similar sized as we could get them. We did this with both of the types of dough so in the end we were left with 16 smaller pieces of dough.
Once we had our smaller pieces of dough, the fun began. With each piece of dough we had to shape it into a rice bowl shape. After the bowl shape was formed, you then placed two spoonfuls of sesame seed into the bowl. Then you closed up the dough around the sesame seed forming the half moon shape that songpyeon is known for. It was more difficult than what it seemed after watching the video. My first attempt ended up being too thin and when I tried to fill it with sesame seed it broke. We did end up getting the hang of it, although our songpyeon looked nowhere near as beautiful as the ones in the video.
When we had completed filling all the songpyeon, we were ready to move onto the next step: cooking the songpyeon! Usually, this step is done with a steamer, but since I don’t have that we had to use the microwave. This is where it got really interesting. Following the instructions, we placed four songpyeon into one of the containers given to us. We filled the container with cold water so that it covered the songpyeon, put the lid on it, and then stuck it in the microwave for seven minutes.
The timer beeped, we went to take it out and were shocked when we saw the lid had come off, the water had boiled over the container and was now all over the microwave. However, our songpyeon was looking good, so we dumped out the hot water and placed it
in cool water in which we poured sesame seed oil. We let the songpyeon cool for a bit in the water before removing it. Despite the microwave debacle, the songpyeon seemed to have cooked so we repeated the process a few more times and just dealt with the water spillage as we went.
Finally, our songpyeon was all made and the moment of truth was there. Would our
songpyeon be as delicious as we hoped? To be honest, I had no idea what to expect. What I got was a very chewy, yet sweet treat that was pretty darn good. Both the original and mugwort were good and I really couldn’t tell much of a difference between the two. I do wish we had filled them with more sesame seeds because I think that would have balanced out the chewiness and sweetness a bit more. I showed my co-teacher a picture of the finished songpyeon and she said it looked delicious and that her mouth started watering. Songpyeon approved!
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