[ FOOD ]
DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM
Balls of baram duek are dropped from the machine that forms and fills them. Below, they are hand-coated with sesame oil.
Celebrate the seasons
through the colors and
flavors of Korean mochi
The machine is marked "Sam Wao," for its maker, but beneath the name it states boldly: "Fantastic Technology."
What a guy, that Sam Wao, but watching his machine in perpetual motion at Ko Hyang Duek Jip, the Korean rice-cake factory in Kalihi, you probably would think it fantastic.
Constantly, rhythmically, the machine plops out smooth globes of rice dough that it has injected with a filling of red bean paste, the ends sealed in a petal-like pattern. The machine's human counterpart, Ki-Been Kim, picks up each piece in hands coated with sesame oil and gives it a roll to set its shape.
This is baram duek, one of a dozen or so types of rice cake produced daily at the plant. Duek -- pronounced "duck" -- is the umbrella name (you might also see it spelled duk, d'uk or tteok; it's all the same thing). Locally, duek often goes by the shorthand of Korean mochi, a point of comparison with the familiar Japanese confection.
Korean Festival
Featuring: Food sales, entertainment, games, demonstrations on Korean mochi and bossam, a specialty kim cheeWhen: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday
Place: Kapiolani Park
Call: 951-7788 or visit www.koreanfestival.com.
On Maui: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Jan. 24 at Maui War Memorial Stadium
The Korean version is not as soft or sweet as Japanese mochi, though. It's chewier, with a salty edge. Baram duek, with its sesame flavor, resembles more a savory Chinese dim sum.
Young-Hae and Soon-Hee Kim, the husband-wife owners of Ko Hyang Duek Jip, begin each workday at 4:30 a.m. Production is steady until 3 p.m. or so, then they clean up and prep for the next day, not leaving until 6. They do this seven days a week.
"Saturday-Sunday is more busy," Soon-Hee says. Churches and temples pick up large orders. "People make parties, yeah?"
Every day, every holiday, every week, every month. "No vacation," Young-Hae says.
The New Year marks the busiest time. "New Year we got to make plenty. Dec. 31, everybody busy," Young-Hae says. Local Koreans seem to have adapted the western holiday for major celebrating, he says, although he expects another spike in demand for the Lunar New Year next week.
As for this weekend, the Kims will be at the Korean Festival, selling their rice cakes, but also demonstrating how to make injulmi, the simplest type of duek. The plain, flat rectangles made of glutinous rice, salt and water resemble Japanese chichi dango, although they are coated in a sandy mung bean powder rather than the snowy potato starch of chichi dango.
DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM
Jung Im Kim guides thin strands of duek boki into a trough where they can be cut into shorter lengths for packing. Young-Hae Kim packs the product for sale at Korean markets such as Palama and Queen's supermarkets. The long, white duek boki is one of a variety of Korean rice cakes produced at Young-Hae Kim's factory, Ko Hyang Duek Jip in Kalihi.
The Kims moved to Hawaii from Korea in 1976. Young-Hae worked in a tuna cannery, a liquor store and drove a taxi. "I also did food wholesale -- restaurants and bakery -- rice, sugar, chili powder."
Then a customer brought up the need for a local source of Korean rice cakes. In 1992, after visiting Korea to study up on the process and buy equipment, the Kims converted their wholesale warehouse to the production of mochi.
Each day, the Kims and a small crew produce 170 trays of various types of duek, each tray 1 to 2 pounds. There's the type called simply Korean mochi, identical to the round Japanese variety, filled with dark an, or azuki bean paste. Mochi kyungdan is a mini-mochi, resembling eyeballs with their filling peeking through like pupils, but coated in sweet cake crumbs.
The process begins with raw rice, which is soaked several hours, then ground into a powder. Water, salt and sometimes sugar are added to make a dough, which is steamed. Traditionally, the dough would be pounded to make it soft, but the factory has a machine to do that. Then comes cutting or forming into the necessary shape. Dark azuki beans and golden mung beans are roasted and ground to make fillings.
The factory's main product this time of year is the sturdy log called kare duek, used to make a traditional New Year's soup.
To imagine the production of kare duek, think of a child's Play-Doh factory, the type where the clay is pressed through a hole to form a long cylinder, then sliced off with a plastic knife. So it is with kare duek, except that the clay is rice dough, the mold is metal and the cylinders that emerge are 6 feet long.
Worker Jung Im Kim provides the muscle for this process, guiding the dough through the mold, then into a trough for cutting. He moves quickly, with great efficiency, through a nonstop series of tasks. It seems he must have been doing this for years, but he says he's been on the job only a week. "I smart, eh?"
The various types of duek fill ceremonial purposes through the year, from baby's first birthday through graduations and Korean Thanksgiving, Chuseok, in September.
This dish uses duek boki, a skinny version of kare duek. It is served at the New Year and Chuseok:
Combine sauce ingredients in a pot over medium heat. Add remaining ingredients and mix. Cover and cook, stirring frequently, until sauce thickens and rice cakes are soft. Serves 4.Rice Cakes in Spicy Sauté
"Dok Suni: Recipes from My Mother's Korean Kitchen" by Jenny Kwak (St. Martin's Press, 1998)4 ounces chopped cabbage
16 ounces duek boki (thin Korean rice cake) in 2-inch lengths
2 ounces green onion, in 2-inch pieces
2 ounces sliced onion
2 ounces shredded carrot
1/4 cup water>> Sauce:
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon EACH crushed garlic, brown sugar, red pepper flakes and red pepper paste
Approximate nutritional analysis, per serving: 210 calories, 4 g total fat, 0.5 g saturated fat, no cholesterol, 490 mg sodium, 40 g carbohydrate, 5 g. protein
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