Monday 25 May 2009

Discover Korean Food #9: Dr. Sook-Ja Yoon's "Tangpyeongchae" (THE EAST Campaign in Association with The Institute of Traditional Korean Food)


Tangpyeongchae is a dish made of jellied mung beans, sprouts, beef, watercress, and eggs. It is sweet and sour in taste, rich in nutrition and harmonized with colors from the meat and vegetables. The name ‘tangpyeongchae’ came about when the dish appeared on the table for the first time, during discussions of tangpeongchaek (unbiased policy) in the Yeongjo era of the Joseon Dynasty.

* Ingredients & Quantity
300 g (1 cake) mung bean jelly, 600 g (3 cups) water seasoning : 2 g (1 tsp) salt, 2 g (½ tsp) sesame oil 100 g beef (top round)seasoning sauce : 13 g (⅔ tbsp) soy sauce, 6 g (½ tbsp) sugar, 4.5 g (1 tsp) minced green onion, 2.5 g (½ tsp) minced garlic, 1 g (½ tsp) sesame salt, 0.3 g (⅛ tsp) ground black pepper, 2 g (½ tsp) sesame oil100 g mung bean sprouts, 50 g watercress, 400 g (2 cups) water, 1 g (¼ tsp) salt 2 g (¼ ea) red pepper, 2 g (1 sheet) laver 60 g (1 ea) egg, 4 g (1 tsp) edible oil vinegar soy sauce : 13 g (⅔ tbsp) soy sauce, 30 g (2 tbsp) vinegar, 12 g (1 tbsp) sugar, 2 g (1 tsp) sesame salt

* Preparation
1. Shred mung bean jelly into 7 cm-long and 0.5 cm-wide/thick.
2. Clean blood of beef with cotton cloths, shred into 5 cm-long and 0.3 cm-wide/thick (70 g), mix with seasoning sauce together (100 g).
3. Remove heads and tails of mung bean sprouts (80 g). Trim watercress stalks cleanly (25 g) and wash under running water. Shred red pepper at intervals of 3 cm-long.
4. Panfry egg for yellow/white garnish, and cut into 4 cm-long and 0.3 cm-wide.
5. Blend vinegar soy sauce.

* Recipe
1. Put water in to a pot, heat it up for 3 min. on high heat. When it boils, scald mung bean jelly for 1 min. (250 g), take out the jelly from the pot and drain water. Mix with seasoning together.
2. When the frying pan heated up, put the beef and pan-fry it for 2 min. on medium heat.
3. Pour water in the pot and heat it up for 2 min. on high heat. When it boils, scald mung bean sprouts with salt for 2 min. (70 g). Scald watercress for 1 min. (27 g) and rinse in water, cut into 4 cm-long.
4. Toast laver for 1 min. on low heat and crush up.
5. Mix mung bean jelly with beef, mung bean sprouts, watercress and vinegar soy sauce together. Garnish with red pepper, laver and egg garnish.


Korean food has been appraised as a genuine, slow, healthy food for its organization with the seasons and regional specialties, harmony of food ingredients and combination of food groups. In spite of high interest in Korean food by global villagers, there haven't been any good books introducing Korean food with internationally comprehensible recipes. As part of the project "Research and Development Project for Standardization of Korean Cuisine" driven by the Korean government, this book is designed to standardize the recipes of the selected 100 Korean foods by using international system of units (SI unit) and to present the pleasure of cooking healthy Korean food easily for everyone around the world. It also gives useful tips, such as service temperature, total cooking time, suggested utensils, nutritional information for one serve, along with specific instructions for preparing ingredients and cooking.

As a principal researcher of the Research and Development Project for the Standardization of Korean Cuisine, she has been in the lead to popularize and globalize the Korean food. She has been extending diverse R&D, lectures and writing books, and also acting as a publicity ambassador for the globalization of Korean food at the various overseas exhibitions. She has held the Special Exhibition of Korean Royal Court Cuisine during the APEC Korea in 2005 and promoted the 4th Korean Food Festival in UN Headquarters in 2007, won high praises from ambassadors to UN and overseas journals for the beauty and excellence of Korean food. Major works are: "Korean Food," "Traditional Korean Food," "The Store and Fermentation Food of Korea," "Korean Traditional tteok," "Cookies and Beverages," "Good Morning, Kimchi," "Gyuhapchongseo," "The Beauty of Wedding Food" and so on.

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