Korean cuisine #1 Samgyetang

Samgyetang

Samgyetang is also known as Gyesamtang, a dish made by adding glutinous rice, garlic, jujube, and ginseng to the stomach of a young chicken, and pouring water for a long time. It is one of the representative health foods in summer, and is mainly used for chobok, red bok, and malbok.

Samgyetang is called ‘Younggye Baeksuk,’ which is called “Young Gye Baek Suk”, which is cooked with Baek Suk (young chickens, young chickens up to 6 months old). In the old recipes such as 『Sikjimibang』, 『Forest Economy』, 『Gyuhap Series』, 『Siuijeonseo』, 『Jubangmun』, 『Wife Pillji』, there are no records of cold products such as Samgyetang or Gyesamtang, but linked Hot water and connected steaming are recorded. In 『Poetry Jeonseo』, which is known to have been written at the end of the 19th century, the cooking method of Yeonjotang is like "a good connection is boiled and salvaged, all bones are applied, and the flesh is ripped off and opened... … If you look at it, it can be seen that the connection soup of the end of the 19th century was boiled like Yukgaejang. The constitution that Samgyetang receives well is Soeumin who does not sweat much in summer. A constitution with a lot of heat, such as Taeyangin or Soyangin, may rather lose.

 

Like Yukgaejang, Gaejangguk became a substitute food for lucky days in the 20th century for those who did not fit the diet. After that, as ginseng became popular, it became Samgyetang. Nowadays, the poultry method is developed and chicks are hatched regardless of the season, but in the past, chicks hatched in spring will grow into heavy chicks weighing about 400 to 500g in summer, so use this to make a nutritious meal that can overcome the heat of summer. It was done.

 

Samgyetang is regarded as one of the preferred Korean dishes by foreigners visiting Korea because it does not have a strong taste and suits foreigners' tastes well. Since samgyetang is so popular, fusion samgyetang with various ideas is being made these days. It is standard to add nokgak (deer horn), chestnuts, pine nuts, etc., and there is also Samgyetang in which natural abalone is put in the skin or octopus is added. Samgyetang, a whole red ginseng root, also appeared. There are also'Herbal Samgyetang' with all kinds of medicinal herbs,'Seafood Samgyetang' with octopus, blue crab, and abalone, and'Bamboo Bucket Samgyetang' in which chicken is steamed in a bamboo container rather than a pot. 

 

History 

The history of Samgyetang is not long, and the culture of eating samgyetang on a lucky day seems to have been established since the 1960s. In the past during the Joseon Dynasty, during the fortune day, the common people mainly ate Gaejangguk (Boshintang) with dog meat, and the Yangbans enjoyed yukgaejang with beef instead of dog meat.

However, Dakbaeksuk, considered the prototype of Samgyetang, already existed in the Joseon Dynasty. In particular, it was one of the meat dishes that were widely used using chicken, which was common in the days when meat was precious.

The beginning of samgyetang began during the Japanese colonial period when many wealthy houses made chicken baeksuk or chicken soup with white ginseng powder, and in the late 1940s, more and more cases were sold at restaurants, and it was established as a separate dish called gyesamtang around the 1950s. At first, ginseng powder was used, but after the 1960s, as refrigerators became available for long-term preservation of ginseng, it was changed to adding dried ginseng. It was called the present Samgyetang from around the 1960s. Since then, it has become a dish that has pushed out Gaejangguk and becomes the center of food for blessings.

Originally, Samgyetang was called Gyesamtang, not Samgyetang. That means that chickens are more important than hemp, and you can see that in the past, chickens were thought to be good for the body. On the contrary, samgyetang means that ginseng is more important than chicken, and you can see why it is called samgyetang when you see that wild ginseng and ginseng are considered as good foods for the body like today.

 

Preparing and cooking ingredients

Chicken, ginseng (or fresh ginseng), glutinous rice, chestnuts (peeled), garlic, jujube, water, salt, pepper powder  

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1. After washing glutinous rice, add water, soak for 1 hour, and drain through a sieve.

 

2. Cut the first part of the wing and the tail of the chicken. Remove the oil from the inside of the neck and put your hands on the stomach to remove the lumps of oil, then wash thoroughly.

 

3. Put soaked glutinous rice in the belly of the chicken and fill in 1/2 portion of chestnut, jujube, garlic and ginseng.

 

4. Insert a skewer to fix the chicken's neck so that it does not loosen.

 

5. Make a hole in the skin of one leg of the chicken, and twist the legs to cross each other to prevent loosening.

 

6. Pour chicken and water into a pan, add ginseng, chestnut, jujube, and 1/2 of garlic, cover and boil thoroughly. (About 1 hour)

 

7. Remove the bubbles that appear in the middle. Season with salt and pepper before eating.