Chapssaltteok

Rice dough steamed before it is shaped and then beaten glossy, wrapped round red bean paste and dusted to stop it sticking.

Vegan.

Ingredients

For the dough

• 250 g glutinous rice flour
• 50 g caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 250 ml water

To fill and finish

• 350 g sweetened red bean paste
• 60 g cornflour or roasted soybean powder, for dusting

Method

1. THE DOUGH IS STEAMED BEFORE IT IS SHAPED, NOT AFTER, and that is the whole difference from the songpyeon on this site. Flour, sugar and water are mixed to a thick batter, steamed for half an hour until it is a translucent mass, and only then beaten and wrapped round the filling. Nothing goes back in the steamer, so the shaping does not have to survive anything and the walls can be thin.
2. AND THEN IT IS BEATEN HARD WHILE HOT, with a wet wooden spoon, for five minutes. It comes out of the steamer lumpy and dull and turns smooth, glossy and extremely elastic. That beating is what makes it pull rather than break, and it cannot be done once it has cooled.
3. EVERYTHING THAT TOUCHES IT IS WET OR DUSTED. This dough sticks to absolutely everything -- hands, spoon, bowl, board. Wet hands for handling, cornflour on the board, and the pieces dusted as they are made.
4. THE FILLING IS ROLLED INTO BALLS AND CHILLED FIRST. Soft paste squeezed into hot dough escapes through the seam; firm cold balls can be enclosed in one movement.
5. THE DUSTING POWDER IS COOKED IF IT IS CORNFLOUR. Raw cornflour tastes of nothing good and coats the mouth; two minutes in a dry pan fixes it. Roasted soybean powder needs nothing.
6. AND THEY ARE NEVER REFRIGERATED. The starch retrogrades and they turn hard and dry within a few hours. Same day, at room temperature, under a cloth.
7. Red bean paste rolled into 10 balls and CHILLED 30 minutes.
8. Cornflour toasted in a dry pan 2 minutes until it smells nutty. Cooled.
9. Rice flour, sugar and salt whisked with the water to a smooth thick batter.
10. Poured into a heatproof bowl, covered with foil, and STEAMED over a hard boil 30 MINUTES, until translucent all through.
11. BEATEN HOT with a wet wooden spoon 5 MINUTES until smooth, glossy and elastic.
12. A board dusted generously with the toasted cornflour, and the dough turned out onto it and dusted again.
13. Divided into 10 with wet hands or a dusted scraper.
14. Each piece flattened to a disc, a chilled ball of paste set in the middle, and the dough brought up and pinched closed. Rolled seam-down in the palm.
15. Rolled in the dusting powder and set on a dusted tray. Eaten the same day; the excess powder brushed off as they are served.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under South Korea · All recipes