Yugwa유과

Yugwa (유과) are confections made by frying glutinous rice dough, and their names change with shape and size: the flat, rectangular kind is called sanja, the small kind gangjeong. Sweets that are fried and then coated in honey or rice syrup were known collectively as hangu (寒具), and yugwa belong to this yumilgwa family of honey-and-oil sweets. When fried, the dough puffs up hollow like a silkworm cocoon, which is why old texts also call it gyeongo (繭糕) or gyeongbyeong (繭餠), using the character for cocoon.

They take a lot of work. Glutinous rice is soaked for a week to ten days until it ferments slightly, ground into flour, mixed into a dough with liquor and other ingredients, dried, then fried. Traditionally they were fried in raw sesame oil. Finally they are brushed with rice syrup and rolled in coatings such as sesame seeds, ground pine nuts, soybean powder, pine pollen or puffed rice.

From the tenth lunar month through Seollal and into spring, yugwa sat beside the fruit on tables for ancestral rites, and they were an essential holiday treat for receiving New Year guests. Hong Seok-mo, the late-Joseon author of Dongguk sesigi, left a verse saying that on New Year's morning nothing beats rice cake soup and gyeongo. In other words, it didn't feel like a new year without gangjeong alongside the tteokguk.