Garaetteok

Steamed rice flour pounded hot until it stops tearing, then rolled into the cylinders tteokbokki and tteokguk are cut from.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 500 g wet-milled short-grain rice flour
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• about 200 ml boiling water
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil, for handling

Method

1. IT IS POUNDED HOT AND KEEPS BEING POUNDED UNTIL IT STOPS TEARING. Straight out of the steamer, into a bowl, and worked hard with the end of a rolling pin or a pestle for a good ten minutes. At the start it breaks apart when you pull it; by the end a piece stretches a little before it parts, and that is the moment to stop. That change is the whole point -- unpounded, the cylinders crumble in the pan and the sauce goes gritty.
2. AND IT MUST STAY HOT WHILE THAT HAPPENS. Cooled, it will not develop at all, and reheating does not give the window back. Work with wet or oiled hands, fast, and cover the part you are not working on.
3. WET-MILLED RICE FLOUR, NOT THE DRY PACKET KIND. Frozen wet-milled flour from a Korean shop is made from soaked rice and behaves completely differently; ordinary dry rice flour will not come together however long it is pounded, and that is the commonest way this fails before it starts. If you only have dry flour, say so to yourself and buy the tteok instead.
4. THE WATER IS BOILING AND GOES IN A LITTLE AT A TIME. It is scalding the starch, not hydrating the flour, and the amount depends on how wet the flour already is -- so it is added by feel to a crumbly dough that just holds when squeezed, not to a measurement.
5. Flour and salt rubbed together, then the boiling water worked in a few tablespoons at a time with a spoon until it clumps like damp sand and holds together when squeezed.
6. Pressed through a coarse sieve to break up any lumps.
7. Spread loosely in a steamer lined with a damp cloth, and steamed over a hard boil 25 MINUTES.
8. Turned out HOT into a sturdy bowl.
9. POUNDED with the end of a rolling pin 10 minutes, folding the mass over on itself every so often, until it is smooth, glossy and stretches slightly before tearing.
10. Torn into 4 pieces with oiled hands and each rolled into a cylinder about 2 cm thick on an oiled board.
11. Cooled completely, uncovered, 1 hour. They firm as they cool and are much easier to cut.
12. Cut across into 5 cm lengths for tteokbokki, or on a steep diagonal into 3 mm ovals for tteokguk.
13. Used within a day, or frozen. FROZEN OR FRIDGE-HARD TTEOK IS SOAKED IN WARM WATER 20 MINUTES before it goes in a pan, or the outside dissolves while the middle is still hard.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under South Korea · All recipes