Next: about 7 to 9 Feb 2027
Seollal
Korean New Year, with tteokguk, rice cake soup, and japchae with sesame oil, black pepper and soy.
Spices for Seollal
On Seollal, Koreans bow to their elders and eat tteokguk, a clear beef broth with sliced rice cakes, topped with egg, seaweed and a little black pepper. Jeon, the pancakes of fish and vegetables, are dipped in soy and vinegar, and japchae glass noodles are seasoned with sesame oil, garlic, sesame seed and pepper. The warm red of gochugaru (chilli flake) is found in kimchi, which is served alongside. Seasoning is balanced by a small set of staples: sesame, garlic, scallion and pepper.
The spices
Also part of it, and being written: Gochugaru (Korean chilli flake in kimchi.).
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Seollal" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Sesame: Anna Frodesiak, CC0, source
- Black pepper: David Monniaux, CC BY-SA 3.0, source