How to make Tteokguk, one of S. Korea's traditional Lunar New Year dishes

Seollal, Korea’s Lunar New Year, wouldn’t be complete without tteokguk, or rice cake soup.

A bowl of this warm, comforting dish is more than just a meal, it symbolizes good fortune and aging a year.

Our Ahn Sung-jin takes us to where the heart of this tradition begins.

“Korean lunar new year, also known as Seollal, is one of the country’s major holidays. Traditionally Koreans would gather together, play folk games and perform ancestral rites and when Koreans think of Seollal, there’s one thing that comes to mind.”

Then what is tteokguk that everyone is talking about?

Tteokguk which literally combines the word tteok -rice cake-and guk -soup-is a typical traditional dish eaten during the Lunar New Year holiday.

The owners of this rice cake mill have been making their own tteok for more than 50 years.

It's especially during these holidays that orders for garaetteok, a long strip of rice cake dough, and the main ingredient in the tteokguk surges.

First rice, which has been soaked, is ground twice to soften it before it is steamed.

After that it's all mashed together to create long strips of garaetteok.

The long strip represents people's desires to have good fortune.

Once the rice cake hardens for a day or two, it is then cut into oval pieces that resemble the shape of coins once used in Korea, the yeopjeon.

The exact origin of eating tteokguk on Lunar New Year’s day is unclear, but it is believed to give good luck for the year.

A traditional saying even goes that you haven’t become a year older until you’ve had a bowl of tteokguk.

Eating tteokguk during Seollal still remains a tradition, even if buying handmade tteok to make your own tteokguk is becoming less common.

“For us it’s mostly regular customers that have been coming for a long time. Not a whole lot of new customers because it’s not common to eat this much tteok. People now normally just buy small packages.”

Tteokguk is not only a symbolic dish of Korea's Lunar New Year, but it also provides a glimpse into the hidden meanings behind the ingredients.

Ahn Sung-jin, Arirang News.