I took a trip with Adventure Korea lately that involved making my own magkeolli and tofu. The trip lasted only one day. We left mid morning from Sindorim in Seoul and traveled to Icheon (이천) where our activities took place. Our first stop was 서경들마을, a farming village where welcomed in by the locals and taught how to make tofu in the traditional Korean way. The head of the village explained a lot of the process however it was all in Korean. But we did have a very nice Korean translator with us who translated the best she could. (She tried but wasn’t perfect I think she does it as a volunteer).
It was a great hands on activity, we participated as a group of 6. First we actually made magkeolli. Makgeolli is a Korean rice wine, it is very cloudy, almost milk like, and some people consider it very sweet, I don’t really, but you can make it sweeter to taste when you make it at home. Anyways, in Korean restaurants it is usually served from a gold colored kettle and is poured into gold metal bowls, sometimes they add cider (sprite) to make it easier to drink. They also have many flavored magkeolli, but that is another post. Out of all the Korean alcohol (well soju and magkeolli) this is my favorite so far. It is about 6-7% alcohol.
There is a few necessary ingredients (let me tell you there is soooo many.. just kidding). Your ingredients are rice, yeast and water. The type of rice that you are suppose to used is called 찹쌀 (chapssal) it is very sticky and much sweeter than most rice, yay sweet rice! The makgeolli yeast is called 누룩 (nuruk) and well water is water.
The rice we got was already precooked and the yeast was already broken up for us. All we had to do is mix them together in a big towel. We needed to softly mix it not kneed it like you would bread. You add the water and let it set for about 5-10 mins. After that we evenly divided it between all of our containers. The instructions on how to finish the magkeolli was all in Korea. Thankfully my boyfriend translated it for me. It had something about the container blowing up due to pressure if the lid is on too tight. But the process takes about 2 weeks to fully ferment. After it does you add some water and honey to taste. The more water you add the less the percentage of alcohol is.
Next up was seeing how fresh tofu was made and getting to try it right after it was finished. Like most food, the fresher the better, and knowing that you helped prepare it will make it taste even better. There are two ingredients to making tofu that would be dried soybeans and water. Ya not too hard. We got to use this giant pestle and mortar to grind the soy beans into a paste. They had two different ones. One was very easy to use and went around very fast. the other one was like working out you had to put a lot of strength behind getting it to turn. Anyways you had to grind the beans at a specific rate. Too fast and it forms bubbles and becomes too liquid. Too slow and it becomes very lumpy. It was very hard to find the exact speed to use actually. The locals actually did most of the making of the tofu we just got to try the grinding and watch as they molded and shaped them steamed and cooked the tofu. The taste was so amazing and fresh. You have never had good tofu until you have fresh cooked tofu. We ate so much of it as a group.
This village we went to is one of the best producers of rice in Korea. You can see many rice paddy fields near the village so you know the rice is local and fresh. Many people travel there to buy the best locally produced products. So this was really a special event we got to go on. After finishing we has a late lunch together, of steamed pork and vegetables (보쌈). Well some of us did I don’t actually eat pork and was with a large group of vegetarians we got to have more tofu. (Don’t get me wrong I love tofu but I ate enough tofu to feed a small village this day, I didn’t want tofu again for quite a while) But after finished we were suppose to have enough time to either make rice cake or stroll around the village. Yet it snowed the night before and was snowing during so none of us wanted to walk by the time we finished with the magkeolli and tofu we didn’t have enough time to make rice cake.
So after lunch we all headed to Silleuk Temple (신륵사) which is located near the South Han River. This is a beautiful, very old temple, constructed around 1400. The name of this temple is said to come from a legend that an uncontrollably swift horse was reined up by the power of God here. There are several buildings and structures worth checking out in Silleuksa, for instance the temple’s oldest building: Dancheungjeon-tab is a tower made of mud bricks, and the Chosa-dang where the portraits of priests are housed. But I admit being in Korea for so long the fascination of temples and palaces have faded on me. Instead I went and found what they considered a convenient store and bought a soda and some water.
Yet in the end I had to give a big shout out to the local government and the village. Because the local governments want to promote tourism to rural communities the price of this trip is shockingly cheap. It included all experiences fees and temple fees covered lunch, insurance, guide and round trip bus from Seoul. For less than a buffet dinner in Seoul cost.
Kimchi Teaching 
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