The combination of sweet pumpkin and sikhye: How to make sweet pumpkin sikhye?

Pumpkins are representative green and yellow vegetables, largely categorized into three types: Oriental pumpkins, Western pumpkins, and Pepo pumpkins. Representative varieties of Oriental pumpkins include aehobak and green pumpkins, while Western pumpkins include sweet pumpkin, medicinal pumpkin, and large pumpkins. Pepo pumpkins include zucchini, noodle pumpkin, and hull-less-seed pumpkin. Among these, sweet pumpkin is also called 'chestnut pumpkin' because its taste is as sweet as a chestnut, and it is one of the popular pumpkins in Korea.

About sweet pumpkin

Sweet pumpkin is an ingredient consumed by cooking it into sweet pumpkin soup, sweet pumpkin porridge, or sweet pumpkin sikhye. It is characterized by its yellow, sweet flesh inside a hard shell. As a Western variety, sweet pumpkin is currently being cultivated in Korea in areas such as Jeju Island, Hampyeong in Jeonnam, and Hongcheon in Gangwon.

About the nutritional components of sweet pumpkin

How to make sweet pumpkin sikhye

Ingredients: 1/2 sweet pumpkin, 1/2 cup malt, 10 cups water, 1 cup non-glutinous rice, 1 teaspoon ginger juice, 1/3 cup sugar

1. Pour 6 cups of water over the malt and let it soak for about an hour, then knead it by hand and strain it through a sieve, collecting the liquid.

2. Gradually pour 4 cups of water over the strained malt, knead it again, and collect the additional strained liquid.

3. If fine impurities such as barley husks float up during step 2, filter it once more using a cotton cloth.

4. Cook the non-glutinous rice with slightly less water than usual.

5. To keep the sediment from step 3 out, pour only the clear upper liquid into an electric rice cooker, add the cooked rice from step 4, and leave it on the warm setting for 4 to 5 hours.

6. Hollow out the sweet pumpkin, steam it in a steamer, and then scrape out and mash only the flesh.

7. Once step 5 is complete, pour only the sikhye liquid into a pot, add the sweet pumpkin from step 6, ginger juice, and sugar, and bring to a boil.

8. After cooling, rinse the rice grains two or three times in cold water, strain them, mix them back into the liquid, and store in the refrigerator to complete the sweet pumpkin sikhye.

[Fam Times = Reporter Shin Hyo-seong]