Korean grain syrup

Yeot is the Korean family of sweets made by breaking down the starch in grains with malt (yeotgireum) and boiling the sweet liquid down. How long it is cooked decides the result: a pourable syrup (mulyeot, literally “water yeot”) or, cooked further, hard taffy (gangyeot). The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture traces malt-based sweeteners at least to the Goryeo period, through references in the writings of the 12th–13th-century scholar Yi Gyu-bo.

Jocheong is the traditional thick syrup. The name contrasts it with cheong, the old word for honey — it was a ‘made’ honey, and because honey was scarce and costly, jocheong became the everyday sweetener for confections. To make it, cooked rice (or millet, sorghum or corn) is mixed with malt water and kept warm until it turns sweet; the liquid is strained through cloth and boiled for hours in an iron cauldron until it thickens. Rice jocheong is clear amber, sorghum versions reddish; thin syrup is used for dipping rice cakes and thick syrup for binding gangjeong.

Most modern mulyeot is factory-made from inexpensive corn or sweet-potato starch, saccharified with microbial enzymes instead of malt and concentrated to a clear syrup. In home cooking it lends a mild sweetness, shine and stickiness to braised (jorim) and stir-fried (bokkeum) banchan such as myeolchi-bokkeum.

• An added sugar: Mulyeot and jocheong are almost pure carbohydrate, providing energy but little else nutritionally. Count them as added sugars.
• Less intensely sweet than sugar: The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture notes that yeot sweetens without the sharpness of sugar and also thickens and binds, which is why small amounts go a long way in glazes.
• Blood sugar: People managing diabetes or blood sugar should account for these syrups the same way as other sugars.