MANILA, Philippines – I had the opportunity to get my hands dirty – or sticky, rather – during a one-day rice cake making workshop that took me to Korea and back home. On July 31, Korean cuisine specialist Lily Min and Filipino chef-writer Reggie Aspiras invited guests to the Korean Cultural Center (KCC) in Taguig City for “Merienda: Phil-Kor Culinary Heritage Exchange,” one of many events celebrating 75 years of Philippine-Korean friendship. Korea and the Philippines share the same love for rice, which was what the culinary event focused on.
There were two cooking demonstrations, each hosted by Min and Aspiras, ending in a buffet-style merienda. It was an educational showcase of how both cultures’ rice cakes take shape and please the palate. It was also a chance to explore ways we can incorporate the flavors of another nation’s cuisine into our own.
Madame Lee Eun-hwa, wife of the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the Philippines, Lee Sang-hwa was even there! In her opening remarks, Madame Lee stated that she wishes for the friendship between South Korea and the Philippines to remain “close and sticky” like rice cakes. Proving the point that rice is the ingredient that binds two nations together, who better to take charge than Chefs Min and Aspiras, who are, in their own right, ambassadors of their respective national cuisines? Yes, chef Min, who has taught cooking classes at the KCC since 2017, is an expert in Korean cuisine, having studied Traditional Dietary Life Food at the Graduate School of Sookmyung Women’s University. One of the highlights of her practice as a Korean food specialist in the Philippines is a collaboration with the Sofitel Manila on a series of events from February to March 2024, bringing Korean noble cuisine to the fore at Spiral.
LIVE DEMO. Chef Lily Min talks about the different kinds of rice cakes or tteok in Korean cuisine. Sophia Gonzaga/Rappler In her workshop, she stated that the challenge in cooking and teaching Korean culinary classes in the Philippines is access to ingredients, and that it’s important to adapt and find alternatives when needed.
She was also a guest in AXN Asia’s 2022 cooking show, Millennium Cooking Philippines , and runs her food brand Lily Lab, which sells authentic Korean deli. PREP. Chef Reggie Aspiras preps the work station for palitaw , the traditional sweet flat rice cake.
Sophia Gonzaga/Rappler Aspiras is a seasoned chef in the Philippines, with years of practice not only in the culinary world but also in writing. Aside from her blog , she runs the “Kitchen Rescue” column for the Philippine Daily Inquirer , the title shared by her book series compiling articles she had written over the years. She also published Notes from My Kitchen in 2019.
She also has her own food line, Chef Reggie’s, which sells cooking essentials like olive oil, salt, and seasoning wine. The rice cake workshop serves as another of the many collaborations between Min and Aspiras. The two chefs co-authored and published K-Drama Cookbook in 2020.
Before that, Min was featured on Aspiras’ YouTube channel to share her recipes for bulgogi (marinated and grilled strips of beef), bugeot guk (dried pollock soup), and chimaek (glazed fried chicken, usually paired with beer). Aspiras even calls Min her “Seoul sister.” Just sweet enough Before the workshop started, I got to try Korea’s misu , a drink made from glutinous rice and other types of grains and beans ground to a fine powder and mixed with water.
Nutty, mildly sweet, and somewhat lactonic in flavor, it reminded me very much of horchata, down to the powdery texture. Min then demonstrated the process of making injeolmi , a glutinous rice cake coated in bean powder. Traditionally, the mixture of glutinous rice powder, salt, and water would be set in a container for two to three hours to let the powder absorb moisture, and then sifted and shaped in the cook’s fist before being steamed.
Because we didn’t have the luxury of time, the dough was prepped before the workshop, and she moved right on to slicing the steamed dough with a knife (wrapped in cling wrap to keep the dough from sticking) and coating the individual morsels in vanilla cake crumbs. Other traditional coatings for injeolmi include black sesame or sugar. According to Min, white bean powder is also normally used by Korean commoners for coating their injeolmi , as it is a widely accessible ingredient.
Nobles, on the other hand, might enjoy their injeolmi with honey, which is considered a premium ingredient in Korean households. STEPS. Making gaksaekdanja using glutinous rice dough (center), fillings (left), and coatings (top and bottom).
Sophia Gonzaga/Rappler For the hands-on part of the demo, we got to make gaksaekdanja using more of the pre-prepped dough. Like injeolmi , this rice cake is coated in a powder or cake crumb of your choice, but it also has a paste for flavoring in the center. For this class, Min made use of traditional bean pastes, as well as ube and pandan for a Filipino twist.
Min (literally) wrapped up her class by finally teaching us how to package our gaksaekdanja using the traditional Korean gift-wrapping method. While it did look difficult at first, it was actually very easy to do, and I got to carry my box of rice cakes in a bojagi (a square-shaped wrapping cloth). TAKEOUT.
Tteok to go! The rice cakes are wrapped in the bojagi and ready for the commute home. Sophia Gonzaga/Rappler Before putting my rice cakes in the box, I snagged a few bites and discovered that these desserts had a very light sweetness to them – not at all “nakaka-umay” or cloying, which is dangerous only because you may find yourself eating more! A savory, localized twist Like injeolmi , the traditional palitaw is only a little bit sweet, but very chewy thanks to the glutinous rice flour, a common ingredient in the two different rice cakes. Traditionally, the dough is shaped into a small ball and then slightly flattened, then put in a pot of boiling water to cook until it rises to the surface.
It’s then sweetened through a coating of coconut shavings and sugar. When Aspiras announced that she was going to show us how to make palitaw, I thought we were getting more desserts. But Aspiras subverted our expectations, and gave it a surprising but welcome umami twist.
IN ACTION. Chef Reggie seasons the crushed peanuts and coconut shavings. Sophia Gonzaga/Rappler In a nod to Korean flavors, she filled and coated the traditionally prepared palitaw with crushed peanuts, toasted coconut shavings, sesame seeds, nori, and some chili powder.
The result was something like takoyaki in flavor but a little more doughy in texture, and I feel like this new version of the palitaw would go well on a barbecue stick, if not for its softness. Merienda time! The afternoon culminated in merienda and afternoon tea served on two buffet tables, one for the tteok and one for the kakanin. SPREAD.
The Korean spread features gaesung juak and yakgwa , among other desserts. Sophia Gonzaga/Rappler From the Korean spread, the most memorable treats I sampled were the gaesung juak , a glazed rice-based doughnut, and yakgwa , a honey pastry. The gaesung juak is soft inside and hard and sticky outside, much like our karyoka (coconut rice balls).
It is so sticky that the glaze clung to my teeth for a while, but, like the gaksaekdanja and injeolmi from earlier, it was not throat-scratchingly sweet (which one would expect of a glazed doughnut). The same could be said of the yakgwa , which reminded me of mazapan in terms of texture, but whose main flavoring agent was honey (and yet, again, not sweet). LOCAL.
The Filipino spread samples regional kakanin, from suman and pastil to puto’t laksa. Photo courtesy of the Korean Cultural Center in the Philippines I then moved on to the Filipino spread. Its hits, for me, were the puto’t laksa and champorado suman with condensed milk sauce and myeolchi or stir-fried anchovies.
The puto’t laksa consists of inutak with vegetables and sotanghon in coconut milk and shrimp paste. The star of the dish is the coconut milk, which binds the bagoong-salty flavors of the Pasigueño laksa with the sweet inutak. The champorado suman plays with that same salty-sweet tension that dominates Filipino cuisine, with the anchovies providing just a bit of crunch to the soft and sticky textures of the suman and condensada.
Overall, Chef Reggie and Chef Lily’s merienda menu may have sought to highlight rice as the culinary staple that binds Korea and the Philippines, but I also think that their dishes showed the ways our national cuisines contend with or challenge sweetness: Korea, through restraint, and the Philippines, through balance. Food ‘unites’ and ‘disarms’ In a quick speech during merienda, Aspiras echoed the sentiment and shared later on that she has done similar events for the Korean Embassy and the Japanese Embassy. “Wherever I can spread our food to other people, I’ll be there for sure.
” “I always say food is the biggest ambassador because food unites,” she said, when asked about the role that food plays in diplomacy. “It’s disarming as well, because it’s non-political. Whether we speak the same language or not, when it tastes good we all say ‘ Mmm .
’ And we all experience the same ecstasy, regardless of what kind of food we eat. If there’s any ambassador that will surely conquer everyone—that is also very safe and will really bring cultures together—it is food.” PRESENTATION.
Chef Lily’s boxes of gaksaekdanja . Sophia Gonzaga/Rappler Formal diplomatic relations between the two countries began when the Philippines recognized the Republic of Korea in 1949, with ties being strengthened during the Korean War in the 1950s. Sharing cultures has played an important role in maintaining the Phil-Kor friendship as well, exemplified by the establishment of Koreatowns throughout the Philippines and, of course, our unending ride on the Hallyu wave.
Cooking workshops like this one held at KCC also provide the perfect space for cultural exchange. The KCC in the Philippines has stood for 12 years as a center for promoting Korean culture to Filipinos through events like this workshop, language and culture classes, exhibitions, and more. It is located on Bayani Road, Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City.
To learn more about the center and future events and cooking classes, you can visit their official website or head to their Facebook page. – Rappler.com.
