UNSRC Korean Cultural Society

KOREA HERALD

A staple of the Lunar New Year table, “galbijjim,” or braised short ribs, is a quintessential example of homey yet regal Seollal fare. The hearty stew of ribs plays sweet and savory flavors off each other and renders meat into tender, velvety chunks of molten glory. The dish, according to the Institute of Traditional Korean Food president Yoon Sook-ja, dates back to the mid-1700s. In an agricultural text from 1766 a method for steaming beef appears. A cooking book from the late 1800s documents it as “garijjim.”

Yoon attributed the practice of serving galbijjim during Seollal to Korea’s agrarian history.

“Our country is an agricultural nation,” Yoon wrote in an e-mail interview. “Cows used to do farm work were considered sacred. During the Goryeo Dynasty, the slaughtering of cows was forbidden to the point that anyone who did so would be punished.”

According to Yoon, only the monarch and aristocrats dined on galbijjim during the Joseon Dynasty. The precious nature of the dish led to the tradition of putting it on the Seollal table.

Today, some households place a bowl of galbijjim on the ancestral table for rites. Some households serve it to guests and family and do not include it as part of the ancestral ceremony.

Where to eat

For those who want to tuck into some galbijjim without going through the hassle of making it, the Korea House serves a galbijjim lunch special.

The set (priced at a reasonable 25,000 won) includes another Seollal staple: “tteokguk” (rice cake soup). For this meal, however, the ribs are where it’s at.

Served up in an elegant porcelain dish, the establishment’s take on this classic displayed an understated sophistication.

Made from grade 1 and 2 “hanwoo” short ribs, the galbijjim bore a fragrant, spice-laden flavor and was appropriately sweet. The secret to the flavor, according to the Korea House’s cooking team head, lies in the fresh ginseng, pyogo (or shitake) mushrooms, daikon radish, apples, Asian pear, licorice root and cinnamon used it infuse it with an aromatic character.

A smattering of chestnut, gingko biloba nuts, carrot, pyogo mushroom and jujube added a dash of color.

An accompaniment of pumpkin porridge, “japchae” (clear noodles stir-fried with vegetables), rice, tteokguk and a dessert of yuzu tea, rice cakes, hangwa (traditional Korean sweets) and fruit rounded out the meal.

The galbijjim lunch special costs 25,000 won per person. Opening hours are from noon to 2 p.m.; 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.; 7:20 p.m. to 8:50 p.m. The Korea House will be open during Seollal. Weekend reservations are required.

For more information visit www.koreahouse.or.kr or call (02) 2266-9101~9103. The Korea House is located near Exit 3, Chungmuro Station, Subway Line No. 4.

(oh_jean@heraldm.com)

Galbijjim Recipe

From the writer’s maternal grandmother

Serves 4 to 5

Galbijjim:

2.4 kilograms of beef short ribs

2/3 cup of water or beef broth (for those who do step 3)

1 cup of raw peeled chestnuts (available at most marts and grocery stores)

1 carrot

1. Pour the ribs into a large bowl. Add cold water till it covers ribs. Cover bowl with newspaper. Soak for two to three hours in a cool place to drain out blood. If there is a lot of blood, change the water once while soaking.

2. Trim off the fat from the ribs. Make two vertical cuts on the cartilage on the bone. Score the meat down to the bone. To make a criss-crossed score, make vertical slices first, then one horizontal slice across the middle.

3. If there is a lot of fat inside the meat, put ribs in a pot, pour in a small amount of water, just enough to help cook it and boil for 20 minutes. Leave in a cool place overnight and skim off the hardened fat. Substitute the resulting beef broth for the 2/3 cups of water. If there is not a lot of fat skip step 3 and go directly to step 4.

4. Put ribs in a large bowl. Add marinade (recipe below) to the ribs. Mix marinade and ribs together. Store the marinating ribs in the refrigerator overnight. Do not discard any of the marinade, pour it all into the container with the ribs so that ribs can fully marinate.

5. Pour the marinated ribs with all of its marinade sauce into a large pot. Add 2/3 cup water or beef broth (for those who did step 3). Cover with lid. Put on high heat until it starts boiling. Reduce to a simmer on medium to medium low heat. Boil for 40 minutes, gently stirring occasionally to prevent the bottom from burning and to keep an even amount of marinade and heat distributed on ribs.

6. While the jjim is simmering, cut the carrot into small, rounded bite-sized spheres. Wash the peeled chestnuts with water. Add the carrot and the chestnuts to the pot. Simmer on low heat for another 20 to 40 minutes or until the beef, carrots and chestnuts are fully cooked and marinade broth is reduced to a thickened sauce-like texture.

Marinade:

30 cloves of garlic

1 onion

1 Asian pear

2 stalks of green onion

1/2 ginger

8 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice wine or sake

2 tablespoons jocheong (grain syrup)

2 tablespoons honey

2 teaspoons black pepper

4 tablespoons white sugar

4 tablespoons sesame seed oil

Dash of ground toasted sesame seeds

1. Process the garlic in a food processor. Set aside.

2. Chop pear into cubes and slice onion. Process the chopped pear and sliced onion together in a food processor.

3. Combine the garlic, pear and onion in a large bowl.

4. Slice the green onion and add to bowl.

5. Grate ginger and squeeze and extract 1 teaspoon of ginger juice. Add juice to bowl.

6. Add 8 tablespoons of soy sauce. Add 2 tablespoons of rice wine or sake. Add 2 tablespoons of jocheong. Add 2 tablespoons honey. Add 2 teaspoons black pepper. Add 4 tablespoons white sugar. Add 4 tablespoons sesame seed oil. Add a dash of ground toasted sesame seeds. Stir marinade.

(oh_jean@heraldm.com)

By Jean Oh

News Clippings

JoongAng Daily

	Photo of Dakjang tteokguk by Oh Sang-min. Other images provided by the World Food Culture Center

With Lunar New Year’s Day falling on Feb. 14 this year, there are two foods likely to share the spotlight: chocolate and rice cake soup, better known as tteokguk in Korea.

While chocolate comes in various shapes, colors, degrees of sweetness and kinds of packaging, tteokguk seems - at first glance - to have retained its traditional recipe with little variation. Most bowls of tteokguk have thin, oval-shaped slices of white rice cake, tteok, served in a delicate beef broth.

But tteokguk is more versatile than expected, and there are more than five major kinds of tteokguk from as many different provinces around the country.

“Korea is a peninsula-shaped country with different geographical features and climates according to region, and tteokguk recipes vary likewise,” said Yang Hyang-ja, 53, the executive director of the World Food Culture Center who has been in the food business for 25 years now. She is currently working with the Agriculture Ministry on their project to globalize Korean food.

“The northern provinces of the country, such as Pyongan, Hamgyong and Hwanghae in North Korea, traditionally make a variation of tteokguk called manduguk [dumpling soup], while the provinces in the southern part of the country make their tteokguk broth with different ingredients, which gives it a different taste,” Yang added.

Tteokguk is traditionally eaten around the Lunar New Year, and is believed to bring good luck and another year of life to the person who consumes it. Let’s take a look at the five kinds of tteokguk from five different regions in Korea.

Gyeonggi Province: Choraengi tteokguk

Kaesong, which was once the capital of Goryeo, was known to have had a strong culinary tradition. After the 1950-53 Korean War, the province to which the city belonged, Gyeonggi, was divided into North and South, with the city of Kaesong becoming part of North Korea.

Today, the people on the southern side of the border still practice the traditional regional cooking style.

The traditional dish served for the Lunar New Year holiday is choraengi tteokguk. It gets its name from its barbell shape, called choraengi in Korean, there is an interesting folk tale about where the shape comes from.

After the foundation of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), Yi Seong-gye, who is credited as the founder of the dynasty, tried to kill all the men from the preceding dynasty, Goryeo (918-1392), so that they could never retaliate.

When news of the general’s intentions spread, the men of Kaesong began to leave, enraging the women of Kaesong. To blow off steam, the women of Kaesong started making their tteok by breaking off pieces of garaetteok, a cylindrical piece of tteok about 12 inches long, and stretching them into smaller gourd-shaped pieces of tteok that they could then use to make soup. It was said that when the women started using a knife to cut the tteok into pieces, they pretended it was Yi’s head they were cutting off.

Chungcheong provinces: Raw tteok tteokguk

In the Chungcheong provinces, tteokguk is often made with pieces of raw, unboiled tteok. Unlike other forms of tteokguk, where the tteok is pre-boiled before it is added to the soup, the broth and raw pieces of tteok are boiled together to make the tteokguk from Chungcheong. This process makes the tteok less chewy when served. The broth contains oysters seasoned with salt or short-necked clams, which gives it the milky-white color that is peculiar to this type of tteokguk.

Jeolla provinces: Dakjang tteokguk

The Jeolla provinces are famous for their dakjang tteokguk.

“Dakjang” is a portmanteau of the Korean words for chicken (“dak”) and soy sauce (“ganjang”) that refers to sliced chicken boiled in soy sauce.

The dakjang is made in advance and buried in the ground, and it keeps for about 15 days.

“Dakjang tteokguk has a pleasantly salty taste and a slight sweetness, which comes from the flavor of the soy sauce used to boil the chicken,” Yang said. “Dakjang tteokguk, which once seemed to have lost ground to other kinds of tteokguk, is becoming more popular these days. I think that’s due to people’s nostalgia for the oldies but goodies as well as the recent ‘well-being’ trend and revival of interest in traditional food, which is presumed to be wholesome,” she added.

Pyongang provinces: Onban (Rice served in beef soup)

In the Pyongan provinces, they serve “onban,” which literally translates to “warm rice” in Korean, in place of tteokguk. As a dish, onban consists of rice served in beef soup.

To make onban, fill half a bowl with rice and put boiled glass noodles on top. Garnish with toppings such as stir-fried mushrooms, seasoned beef, a beaten egg, thinly sliced red chili peppers and slightly toasted and crushed gim (dried seaweed). Pour the boiling beef broth over the bowl immediately before serving.

Since the dish is already garnished with various ingredients, with each one adding its own flavor, side dishes are not considered necessary when this dish is served, with the exception of kimchi.

Hamgyong and Hwanghae provinces: Wang manduguk (Giant dumpling soup)

People in the Hamgyong and Hwanghae provinces celebrate Lunar New Year by making a soup with large, fist-sized dumplings.

“In the northern area of the country, there are not as many rice farms as in the southern part, so there is a limited supply of rice for making tteok,” Yang explained. “That’s why they make dumplings for festive occasions.”

In the past, tteokguk was actually considered to be a fancy and highly nutritious treat due to the scarcity of white rice, which is the most desired staple food in the country, according to Yang.

Gangwon Province

Dubu tteok manduguk (Tofu, rice cake and dumpling soup)

The ingredient that makes the tteokguk from Gangwon so extraordinary is simple: tofu. The city of Gangneung is particularly well known for its Chodang tofu, which is said to be seasoned with seawater from the East Sea, instead of salt.

Gyeongsang provinces: Geul (oyster) tteokguk

The Gyeongsang provinces, which are near the sea, are known for their oyster tteokguk. Here, the broth is made with oysters instead of beef, which makes for a refreshing taste for those of you accustomed to the beef stock variety. Clams, shrimp and other kinds of seafood are then added to taste. And in some places, anchovies are used to make the broth, instead of the oysters, which are added to the broth later.

By Park Sun-young [spark0320@joongang.co.kr]

News Clippings

JoongAng Daily

	Hikers climb Mount Halla’s Donnaeko Trail. By Kwon Hyuk-jae

Avid climbers who forgo Mount Halla this winter season will miss out on a wonderful chance to take in the magnificent scenes around its trails.

The heavy snowfall this winter season has turned the trails of Mount Halla on Jeju Island, which are already considered scenic, into a must-visit place for hiking enthusiasts.

This is part of the reason why, despite the frigid temperatures, the number of hikers is on the increase this winter. Hallasan National Park officials recently released data indicating a roughly 30 to 40 percent increase in the number of visitors this year in comparison to last winter.

It has also been said that, unlike in the past when visitors used rental cars, the number of visitors using public transportation to get around the island has also been on the increase this season.

The Donnaeko Trail, which is seven kilometers long, takes roughly 3.5 hours to hike and was once favored by Jeju moksa, or current-day governors, for their descent after a trip to Baengnokdam, a balsic rock. That means the trail was easy enough for even the athletically challenged scholars to climb.

The picturesque route, which recently opened to visitors for the first time 15 years, offers unique and interesting sights for even the youngest of visitors.

The trail starts from the Mount Halla Visitors Center, which is about 500 meters above sea level.

The trail continues to Sseogeun-multong, Salchaegido, Pyonggwe Shelter and then to the peak, which is the south cliff junction that is roughly 1,600 meters above sea level. The most popular way down from the south cliff junction is via the south cliff beltway, which leads to Witsae-oreum, which are volcanic parasitic cones.

	A view of the snow-covered peaks of Mount Halla. [JoongAng Ilbo]

But the biggest reason more people are visiting Mount Halla is the snow. The mountain, located in the central area of the island, was blanketed with snow a lot earlier than in previous years. By mid-January, well over one meter of snow collected on the Mount Halla trails.

Rain seemed to melt some of the snow away but a recent fresh snowfall has returned the level of snow on the trails to its previous point.

The wooden steps that lead to the trails have been buried in snow, with only the stake holding the wooden handrail visible to the eye. Only the orange nylon ropes lining the trail, which are well over an average person’s height, give hikers a clear indication of the trail’s path.

The sight of Mount Halla after a heavy snowfall is something travelers are not likely to forget.

The heavy snowfall along with the cold snap has frozen the crater walls of Baengnokdam Balsic Rock, producing a scene similar to the mountain walls found in the high altitudes of the Himalayas.

The dark-hued splendor of Baengnokdam’s southwestern wall has been painted white with snow.

The group of Korean fir trees near Witsae-oreum, a volcanic parasitic cone, is covered entirely by snow and the strong wind has carved out shapes unique to each tree. It is a sight one might expect to find in a much colder region like Siberia, but is quite rare in Korea. People who hike these trails are often left speechless by what they see.

The winter setting of Mount Halla is also an ideal place to train for those planning a hiking expedition to the Himalayas. Near the Baengnokdam area there are several training camps of hiking teams preparing spring expeditions to the Himalayas.

It is now nearly impossible to find trails covered in waist-high snow anywhere else in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, making it an ideal way for trekkers to test their skills before heading out to distant lands.

By Kim Young-joo [jason@joongang.co.kr]

News Clippings