Yugwa

Dough dried hard and then fried at two temperatures so it puffs hollow, glazed and rolled in puffed rice.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains honey.

Ingredients

For the dough

• 400 g glutinous rice flour
• 100 ml rice wine
• 80 ml water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

To finish

• 1 litre oil for frying
• 200 g rice syrup or honey
• 150 g puffed rice or crushed toasted sesame seeds

Method

1. THE DRIED PIECES ARE FRIED AT TWO TEMPERATURES TO MAKE THEM PUFF. First in oil at about 110C, where they soften and swell slowly without colouring, then straight into oil at 170C, where the trapped steam expands and they blow up to three or four times their size and go hollow. One temperature cannot do it: too cool and they never puff, too hot and the outside sets before the inside has expanded, which gives a hard biscuit.
2. AND THEY MUST BE DRIED HARD FIRST, which takes two or three days. The steamed dough is rolled thin, cut, and left on a rack until the pieces are bone dry and snap cleanly. That stored moisture is what becomes the steam that puffs them -- too wet and they spit and stay flat, too long and there is nothing left to expand.
3. SO THIS IS A THREE-DAY SWEET and the page should say so before anyone starts: steam and roll on day one, dry for two, fry and glaze on the third.
4. THE DOUGH IS STEAMED BEFORE IT IS ROLLED, like the chapssaltteok on this site, and then beaten -- it needs to be elastic enough to roll very thin without tearing.
5. RICE WINE IN THE DOUGH IS NOT FOR FLAVOUR. It helps the structure stay open as it dries and is part of why the pieces puff; water alone gives a denser, meaner puff.
6. AND THEY ARE GLAZED WARM AND COATED AT ONCE, the same principle as the gyeongdan page: syrup goes on while they are warm and the coating sticks only while the syrup is wet.
7. DAY ONE. Flour, sugar and salt mixed with the rice wine and water to a stiff dough, then steamed in a bowl over a hard boil 30 MINUTES until translucent.
8. Beaten hot with a wet wooden spoon 5 minutes until smooth and elastic.
9. Rolled on a surface dusted with glutinous rice flour to 3 mm, and cut into 4 cm rectangles.
10. DAYS TWO AND THREE. Laid on racks, not touching, and left to dry 2 to 3 DAYS, turned daily, until bone dry and they snap.
11. DAY THREE. Oil heated to about 110C. A few pieces lowered in and held 1 to 2 MINUTES, pressed gently under with a spoon as they soften and begin to swell.
12. Lifted straight into a second pan of oil at 170C, where they PUFF within 30 seconds to several times their size.
13. Turned once, lifted out pale and hollow, and drained on a rack.
14. The rice syrup warmed until runny. Each piece brushed or rolled in it while still warm.
15. ROLLED AT ONCE in the puffed rice or sesame, which sticks only while the syrup is wet. Kept in a tin; they go soft within days in a damp kitchen.

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