How to make Songpyeon

A recipe of traditional Chuseok food - Songpyeon:

Songpyeon Ingredients :

Non-glutinous rice, 5 cups (making 10 cups of powder)
Salt (15ml)
Artemisia or mugwort (50g), Salt (1 ml)
Gardenia seeds & omija juice, as needed

Filling
Chestnuts 10 (200g)
Sugar (30ml)
Young soybeans (100g)
Salt (1ml)
Sesame (100g)
Honey (45ml)
Mung beans 1 cup
Honey (75ml), Salt (2.5ml)
Cinnamon powder (15ml)
Pine needles (300g)
Sesame oil, as needed

Songpyeon Making Direction :

1. Wash non-glutinous rice 3 to 4 times and leave it soaking in water for 8 to 12 hours. Remove the soaked rice from water and sprinkle some salt and grind into a fine powder. Place the Artemisia in boiling water with salt, remove and then chop into fine pieces.
2. Take the powder for the rice cake and divide into 4 parts. Leave one part as it is, another part for the Artemisia. As for the other two parts, mix one with water from pine endodermis, and mix the last part with omija juice and knead it to make dough.
3. Peel chestnuts and cut into 3 or 4 pieces, include some sugar and steam lightly. Take the young soybeans, peel and add a bit of salt. Wash the sesame and when dry, roast and then mix with honey. Take the red beans that have been soaked in water, boil and then grind and mix with honey, salt, cinnamon powder to make the filling.
4. Take little pieces of the prepared dough. Press your thumb into the middle of the piece to make a round, flat piece. Place enough filling in the middle, fold and press the ends to make nicely-shaped songpyeon. Next, wash the pine needles and then dry.
5. In an earthenware steamer, place pine needles on the surface of the steamer and songpyeon on top. Stack more pine needles and repeat the process to add as many layers of songpyeon in the steamer as possible. When you see steam evaporating, place the cover on top. Next, take the pine needles out, dip songpyeon in cold water, rinse quickly and apply some sesame oil. Songpyeon that’s not yet been steamed should be covered with a thin damp cloth to prevent the dough from drying or cracking.

 ~~ Tip ~~

 Potatoes, sweet potatoes and acorns, among other ingredients, can be used as the dough. For the filling or stuffing, black beans, mung beans, chestnuts, jujube, sesame or sweet potatoes are used. If you dont plan on eating the steamed songpyeon right away. Rinse it with the pine needles (not in cold water), keep them covered in a basket.

(The article courtesy of SEOUL magazine)

추석 (Chuseok) - Korean Thanksgiving Day

Chuseok is one of the most important holiday in Korea.

It is celebrated on 15th day of the 8th month (lunar calendar). On Chuseok Koreans visit their parents and  give thanks to their ancestors for the abundant harvest.  

Traditions

 On the morning of Chuseok, Koreans  present newly harvested rice, rice wine and Songpyeon to their ancestral altars. 

There are some rules how to organize ritual table on Chuseok holiday.
  - Direct the ritual table to the north.  -  There is a certain order how to serve dishes:  rice and soup come first. Then, arrange food in the order of quality and price from the perspective of the past. The most expensive and fine dishes are to be put closer to ancestors. Cheap fruits and vegetables are served in the front row, the next are seasoned vegetables and fried dishes.  The last row is for  boiled food.
Meat must be placed on the right (west) of the souls of ancestors and fish on the left (east) because meat is more expensive than fish. Similarly fish should be put with the tail on the right and the head on the left because the tail is the better part to eat.
Among fruit, red ones should be put in the east and white ones in the west. It is also worth remembering to place jujubes, chestnuts, persimmons, and pears in that order from left.
 -  The number of food should be odd.
 - All food offered on a ritual table should be in odd numbers.
 - Pepper and garlic should be avoided.

Songpyeon

Songpyeon is a half-moon shaped rice cake.

It's representative food for this holiday. Songpyeon cakes contain different kinds of sweet or semi-sweet fillings, such as sesame seeds and honey, sweet red bean paste, (azuki) and chestnut paste steamed over a layer of pine needles, which gives them the fragrant smell of fresh pine trees.
There is a belief that the person who makes the most beautiful songpyeon will meet a good-looking spouse (if they are single) or give birth to a beautiful daughter (if they are married or pregnant)~

If you wanna try to make a songpyeon yourself, click here

Hanbok 

Traditional Korean clothes  - hanbok - is still used when celebrating Chuseok.

celebrities wearing hanbok

B2ST

 Chuseok is very important holiday because all family gather together and celebrate. For this reason it is said that it's extremely difficult to buy a ticket on a train or bus)

Chuseok dance

A day of Chuseok is an official day-off in companies.
Happy Chuseok to everyone~