Saturday, November 22, 2008

Sweet Sticky Rice

약식 [Yak-Shik]

One of the big changes that happened to me this year as an ajuma (a married woman) as opposed to being single last year is that I now find the trace of seasonal changes in different places. If I had realized the seasonal changes before in a mall looking at the fall and winter collection dressed in show windows, this year I had the exactly same realization come to me in the produce section in grocery market. It was the chestnuts and persimmons that sent me the message - the fall has come! When they showed up in the market, I bought 10 pounds of chestnuts and I felt even more like an ajuma... >.< What did I do with all those chestnuts? I cooked some with rice and I steamed some to scrape off with a spoon. And lastly but not least, I saved for yakshik, sweet rice snack/desserts.


For 4 servings
(Shown in pictures below are for 8 servings)

Main Ingredients:

sweet rice/chapssal (2 cup)
chestnuts (10)
dry dates/daechu (10, pitted)
pine nuts(2 tbl)


Sauce:

water (1 1/3 cup)
brown sugar (2/3 cup)
soy sauce (3 tble)
sesame oil (2 tble)
oil (1 tbl)
ground cinnamon (1 tbl)



1.
Soak sweet rice in water for 6+ hours.

2.
Peel the chestnuts. This is the hardest, most time-consuming part... Does anyone know a better way? The next new kitchen gadget should be a chestnut peeler!

3.
Break the chestnuts into small bite-size pieces.

4.
Cut dry dates into three pieces.

5.
Drain the sweet rice, and mix with chestnuts (from Step 3), dry dates (from Step 4) and pine nuts.

6.
In a separate bowl, make the sauce by mixing the ingredients above: water+brown sugar+soy sauce+sesame oil+oil+ground cinnamon.

7.
Pour the sauce into sweet rice mix.

8.
Mix them well.

9.
Cook in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes and release steam. My Fissler pressure cooker was set to Level II, and I turned it off after the steam bar hit the last red ring. If you are using a rice cooker, set it to the brown rice mode. It should take longer than regular rice. Or, you could simply microwave them for 10+ minutes in small portions.

10.
This is how it's going to look at the end. Stir them.

11.
Place the rice into flat mold or ramekins and cool off.

7 comments:

Min said...

for the lazy ones, you *can* buy peeled (uncooked) chestnuts from markets. they are much more expensive, obviously.

Anonymous said...

I've never heard of that dish, but it looks delicious! Can you make it in a regular pan, or does it have to be done in a pressure cooker?

Migi said...

I recently learned from a friend that you can also cook this in microwave! She said it tastes just as delicious!

Anonymous said...

A simple and sweet dish.

Thanks
Jane

Anonymous said...

my mom makes yakbab all the time, but I never made it myself. maybe I should try it now that I am heading into the ajuma territory as well. ;)

Migi said...

Hi, Jane and bionicgrrrl -
I am not sure if this dish is 'simple' but definitely sweet and delicious!

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