SaengGangRan 생강란

Hi-

whatever food you saw in the drama Daejanggeum is Korean court food long long time ago that was mostly made for kings and his family only. Ordinary people didn’t eat most of those food you saw. That’s why you have hard time finding the recipe. I am fully Korean, grew up in Korea but I’ve never heard of it and I am sure most people only heard such dish existed only through watching that drama. Keep looking but this is not the kind of people that make and eat in Korea so just keep that in mind.

See, I’ve never heard of any of the food you’ve mentioned here. These are the food that people may translate from old text in college.

If you post the link, I’ll read them and trying to see if any of them are actual recipes. I have my doubts because i’ve searched number of Korean food recipes over Korean internet and my experience has not been totally positive because we Koreans are not used to giving precise recipes. Most people just tends to say “it’s done when it looks done” or ” little bit of this and that” even the ones with measuring cups and spoons are not that accurate. It’s whole lot of eyeballing but that’s just how people cook and they assume that you do, too.

Anyway, we can at least try, right?

Ok, the first link says:

1) Peel 800g of ginger, and wash. Grin them finely.

2) Put that in a cotton or linen pouch (Korean people use this, but I don’t know where you can buy one. I got mine from my mom). You put some water and massage and squeeze the whole thing over a bowl. so you are basically making the ginger water. Do this twice. Add little more water 2nd time. Then finally squeeze the whole thing, get rid of all the water and save the ginger pulp. ( I don’t think how much water you put doesn’t matter because you are not using the ginger water. You can still freeze the ginger water and use it for other food. You are going this to get rid of the hot taste in ginger)

3) Then let the ginger water sit for a while and the starch in the ginger water will settle in the bottom. (The White stuff you see on 6th,7th pictures is the starch after you pour out the water part)

4) You put the ginger pulp in a sauce pan, It says add 5 cups of something called ‘old pumpkin malt’???? I don’t know what that is, never heard of it, but I think you can put sugar and some water instead if you don’t have this weird thing.

5)You simmer the mixture until it gets sticky then add the ginger starch you got from the ginger water. Then cook more. Then you are done. I guess you shape them when you can handle them.

So it’s like ginger candies than savory dish. It sounds like ginger egg, but it isn’t.

I didn’t translate the 2nd site because they looked all similar. As I said before, don’t trust the measurement whole heartedly but rather play with it and see what works by experiment especially with the sugar. Because I am pretty sure 5 cups of whatever that old pumpkin stuff does not equal 5 cups of sugar. I think you can add some honey as well. Play and see.

I hope this helps and hope you enjoy it. Let me know how it turns out! Now I am excited!