Dotori-muk or acornjelly is a Korean food which is a jelly made from acorn starch. Although "muk" means "jelly", when used without qualifiers, it usually refers to dotorimuk. The practice of making dotorimuk originated in mountainous areas of ancient Korea, when abundantoak trees produced enough acorns each autumn to become a viable source of food.
Production
Despite being a rich source of starch and proteins, acorns contain large amounts of tannins and other polyphenols, which prevent the human body from digesting them properly. Harvested acorns must be properly leached of the tannins prior to consumption. Acorns are either collected directly from the ground or knocked off the tree branches. The acorns are opened and the nutmeat ground into a fine orange-brown paste. The paste is then stirred into vats of water and the acorns' fiber is separated from the starch through sieving and settling. The starch-water mixture is collected and allowed to sit so that the tannins in the starch diffuse into the water, which is changed several times. The overall soaking time depends on the amount of tannins in the paste. The now-tannin-free starch-water suspension should have an off-white colour. This starch is allowed to completelysettle at the bottom of the vat, the water drained away and the paste collected in trays to dry. The dried starch cake is then pulverized and packaged for sale. Dotorimuk is also commercially available in powdered form, which must be mixed with water, boiled until pudding-like in consistency, then set in a flat dish.
Serving
Like other muk, dotorimuk is most commonly eaten in the form of dotorimuk muchim, a side dish in which small chunks of dotorimuk are seasoned and mixed with other ingredients such as slivered carrots and scallions, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, red chilipepper powder, and sesame seeds. Muk-mari is also famous. As Muk-town was formed in Daejeon as part of a farm side business since the 1980s, Muk Cooking made by a woman started attracting people's attention. In particular, Muk-mari is made of salted seaweed with its rich texture and is made of dried acorn.
