Let’s continue on today’s Korean kick, shall we? This is something else that I first tried in Korea, and have never seen here in Canada until I tried making it yesterday. It is essentially a strong ginger and cinnamon tea, sweetened with sugar and then dried persimmons are put in, to be steeped for a day in the fridge before drinking. The dried persimmons swell up and become as soft (or softer) than fresh persimmons. The punch is topped off with a few pine nuts before serving.

necessary materials: cinnamon sticks, sliced ginger, dried persimmons

Ingredients: 1/2 cup peeled & sliced fresh ginger, 6 cinnamon sticks, 7 cups of water, 1/2 cup sugar (the original recipe called for a cup of sugar, but I don’t like things that are very sweet), 5 dried persimmon, and some pine nuts (the tiny ‘nub’ on the tip removed).

I found this recipe on Maangchi‘s wonderful site, and I highly recommend you watch some of her videos; she’s a great cook, and always makes her recipes look like so much fun!

dried persimmon, before washing and soaking.

To make sujeonggwa, start by peeling and slicing the ginger. Rinse the cinnamon sticks and put them into a pot with the 7 cups of water and the ginger. Bring this to a boil over high heat, and let it boil for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, take your dried persimmons out of the package, remove the little stem/leaf at the top, and rinse them under cold running water. The white residue on them is sugar, not mold, so don’t let that worry you. When the ginger/cinnamon ‘tea’ is nearly done, add the sugar and let it dissolve before turning off the heat. I then put the dried persimmons into two big glass jars, and strained the liquid into the jars before covering them and putting them in the fridge. Let the sujeonggwa stand for 12-24 hours, and then it is ready to serve. Put one persimmon in each bowl or cup (or cut them up, as you like) pour some punch in, and float some pine nuts on top.

a piece of the soaked persimmon

You should be able to find dried persimmons in a Chinese, Japanese or Korean grocery store. I found them in the freezer section, in a package of twelve.

The punch itself tastes more strongly of cinnamon and ginger than it does persimmon, and these spices make it a warming drink, even though it is served cold. This would usually be served as a dessert after a Korean meal, and the ginger and cinnamon make a great digestif.

sujeonggwa, served

Korea, like its neighbors China and Japan has a long history of tea consumption and ceremony, but has also traditionally enjoyed many types of tisanes and sweetened herbal teas, one of which is sujeonggwa. If you like ginger tea and persimmons, you will certainly enjoy this wonderful drink.

love,
meg

Tags: autumn, fruit, Korean, Tea

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 5:55 pm and is filed under Tea, Treats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.