Saehae bok mani badeuseyo or Happy New Year!  It is a Korean tradition to eat tteokguk or rice cake soup to celebrate the new year.  It symbolizes adding another year to your age, and since the rice cakes are in coin-like shape, it also symbolizes prosperity in the new year.  Although it is a tradition to eat this soup on New Year’s Day, this hot, hearty soup will also hit the spot on cold, winter days.

https://www.koreanbapsang.com/tteokguk-korean-rice-cake-soup/

This is a great traditional recipe that is very similar to my mother’s recipe.

Another plus about this soup is that there are a lot options and varieties from the kind of broth you can use to adding dumplings or other vegetables to your soup.  I grew up eating this with beef broth, but you can substitute with chicken or anchovy broth, or even vegetable broth for vegetarians and vegans. I like to add pork or kimchi dumplings to my soup.  This should be added and almost cooked before adding the sliced rice cakes, or else your rice cakes will be too mushy.

Pictured is one I made with chicken broth and chicken and cilantro dumplings I brought from Costco.

I can’t wait to hear how your soup turned out.  Let me know what you thought about this traditional soup, and how you made it your own.

Lydia Park

Lydiap.rdh@gmail.com

2021 IDHA President-Elect