Korean Rice Cake Soup
Enjoy The New Year

Rice Cake soup known as Ddukguk is a traditional dish eaten to celebrate the Korean new year (same as the Chinese). It is made from stock with thinly sliced rice cake and topped with seasoned seaweed paper and sliced egg. We eat it on New Year’s Day as we believe it will bring us longevity and good luck. It is tradition that by eating a bowl of rice cake soup you will be a year older, and my grandmother used to say if we ate 2 bowls of soup we would be 2 years older this year as a joke.

There are many types of Ddukguk, I quite enjoy adding Korean dumplings (Mandoo), and different meats like chicken, beef and pork are quite common. For simplicity I have used chicken stock which makes this easy at home.

I have used the following ingredients (3-4 people): 

  • 1.2 litre water 
  • 2-3 cube of chicken stock 
  • 3-4 kelp seaweed
  • Salt and pepper 
  • 2 handfuls of rice cakes 
  • 2 Eggs 
  • 10-15 Mandoos

First, you soak sliced rice cakes in a bowl with cold water for 30mins- 1hour

This is my preferred rice cake soup recipe, begin by putting about 1 litres of water in a saucepan along with 3 to 4 pieces of seaweed and bring this to boil, in a small cup or bowl put about 200ml warm water and add 2-3 cubes of chicken stock and dissolve these with a fork before adding to the water.

Once it is boiling well add the Korean dumplings (Mandoo) and season the broth with some salt and pepper or soy sauce if required. Boil the mixture for about 8 to 10 minutes before adding rice cakes and allow this to continue to boil for another 10 minutes or so.

In a small bowl, whisk an egg and then turn off the heat for the soup and add the egg. Using a fork stir the sauce for a couple of minutes until the egg has fluffed up.

 Serve hot with some seaweed on top

Traditional Korean Rice Cake Soup

Is made similar to the above without dumplings or egg, it is often made with a meat broth like beef and topped with seasoned seaweed and fried sliced egg. 


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