The Korean rice cakes(Tteok:???) introduced today are a type of snack or a simple food eaten at tea time, belonging to the traditional food that Koreans love very much. In general, in Korea, you can think of it as such an oriental dessert when you visit a relative’s house or visit an elderly person, stopping by an old mill nearby to buy the rice cakes made that day.
Don’t think of the typical western style sweet and high-calorie desserts out there, which are made with flour, oil, sugar, butter and all sorts of thick cream and chocolate. In asian cuisine, rice is the staple food of Asia, and among rice there is chewy glutinous rice, which is mainly used as a main ingredient in making asian desserts.
So, although chewy rice cakes are usually made by steaming them in a steamer, in modern days, people can make and eat sticky rice cakes as easily as cooking rice with an electric rice cooker at home.
I will show you how simple and easy it is to make delicious rice cakes at home. In particular, I prefer steaming or baking whenever possible, as steamed or oven-cooked foods are 100 times healthier, tastier and retains nutrients than deep-fried foods. So, I made a really delicious and chewy rice cake using a rice cooker and oven, steaming and baking.
Let’s look at the ingredients we need to prepare. Any beans you have at home would be great. I prepare one cup each by soaking red kidney beans, corn, and chickpeas in water for more than 3 hours. You can also prepare one cup of glutinous rice. Soak the dried jujube in water for one hour and wash it. Then, add a pinch of salt to boiling water, boil the dates for about 5 minutes, cool them, and then remove the seeds.
Put glutinous rice in an electric rice cooker, then add kidney beans, corn, and chickpeas in order. Also, add jujubes and pour water over it to adjust the height. Because too much can turn the sticky rice into porridge, you only need to pour the water until the sticky rice and beans are submerged and about an inch above the surface of the water.
Then, sprinkle about two tablespoons of sesame oil and one tablespoon of sesame seeds evenly for a savory taste. Also, add about a tablespoon of cinnamon powder for a sweet and fragrant scent. And, between the rice and beans, stir well to infuse the fragrant and fragrant sesame oil and cinnamon flavor.
The subtle yet fragrant and savory flavor that comes out when I stirred the sesame oil, sesame seeds and cinnamon powder made me smile. I didn’t add sugar, but if you want typical sweet glutinous rice cake, you can add about half a cup of brown sugar or drizzle some honey.
The electric rice cooker I have has several menu functions. Among the options, I chose multigrain rice option instead of nutritious sticky rice option. It won’t be much different.
When I select the multigrain rice option, 40 minutes is already set automatically. The first 10 minutes or so is time slowly heating the ingredients all together, like preheating the oven, and the remaining 30 minutes can be considered actual cooking time.
After 40 minutes like this, the rice cooker makes a huge “beep” sound, indicating that the rice is done.
So, after waiting for about a minute or more, after hearing the steam escape rapidly, I open the lid of the rice cooker. When I open it, the deseeded jujubes are piled up calmly on the top.
In fact, when I open the lid of the rice cooker, the intense steam and heat rushing in makes my face sweat. It’s like a steam massage on my face.
I gently stir the jujubes piled up on top with a spatula, and evenly mix the glutinous rice and three kinds of beans under the jujube.
Again, how indispensable sesame oil and cinnamon powder really are, the sweet and savory aroma fills the kitchen through the steam while mixing, tickling my nose.
I put the mixed sticky rice in a bowl and let it cool for about 30 minutes. While it cools, preheat the oven and prepare two oven molds. One is round shape one and the other is long bread loaf. I put oil paper on each inside. Then, I put the little cooled sticky rice into oven molds so that the beans are evenly mixed.
After putting the sticky rice into the molds, knock them down on the table, and let the sticky rice set gently. And I sprinkle some rolled oats evenly over it. I bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes.
Since it is already sticky rice cooked in an electronic rice cooker, cooking it in the oven is just to make it more sticky in the shape of a baked cake.
The perfect cake made in the oven is really chewy, light, and delicious. If I cut it into a triangle shape and eat it with coffee or traditional tea, it is really delicious. The taste of the three beans is evenly chewed in my mouth, and the sticky rice makes me feel so satisfying.
To be honest, it’s not sweet, it’s far from sweet at all. Because the light and savory taste provided by three beans is good, it is delicious as it is.
But the second time I ate it, I sweetened it with honey drizzled on it. After all, I can’t help but think that in order for a dessert to be much more delicious, it has to be a little sweet.
Haha!????
So, the next time I make sticky rice in the rice cooker, I am thinking of adding sugar or honey in advance.
Once made, it’s a really healthy and delicious nutritious dessert that can be simply enjoyed at any time of the day. For this reason, it is a sweet or savory snack that everyone likes among common snacks in Korea that cannot be missed.
Make sure you try it yourself to see how easy and simple it is to make through my YouTube video.
<Ingredients>
Glutinous rice: 1 cup
Jujube: 1 cup
Kidney beans: 1 cup
Corn: 1 cup
Chickpeas: 1 cup
Sesame oil: 2 tablespoons
Sesame seeds: 1 tablespoon:
Cinnamon powder: 1 tablespoon
Rolled Oats: 1 tablespoon
Pinch of salt
In addition, Chinese people also eat a lot of rice cakes made from glutinous rice. In particular, Zongzi, eaten at the Dragon Boat Festival on June 14 every year, is the most delicious among my favorite Chinese rice cakes. It’s nice to be able to taste a lot of different kinds of ingredients because the ingredients are different in each region of the Chinese people.
Among them, my favorite Hokkien-style Zongzi has salted egg yolk, peanuts, pork belly, chestnuts, and mushrooms. All these ingredients are well stuffed in glutinous rice, wrapped in bamboo leaves or lotus leaves, and steamed in a steamer before eating. As you can see from the ingredients, it can be seen as a salty rather than sweet food.
After seeing Zongzi in my video below, I hope you will try it someday. If you go to China Town near by, you can buy it and enjoy it anytime of the year.