Tteokbokki

Rice cakes simmered in a chilli sauce that is reduced onto them until it clings, which is what stops it being a soup.

Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish.

Ingredients

• 500 g garaetteok, as on its own page, in 5 cm lengths
• 200 g Korean fish cake sheets, in strips
• 500 ml anchovy and kelp stock, as on its own page
• 3 tablespoons gochujang
• 1 tablespoon gochugaru
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 spring onions, in 4 cm lengths
• 2 eggs, hard-boiled, optional
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• toasted sesame seeds

Method

1. THE SAUCE REDUCES ONTO THE RICE CAKES AND IS NOT A SOUP. It starts as half a litre of thin red liquid and finishes as a thick glossy coating you can see the tteok through. That takes twelve to fifteen minutes of real bubbling, and it is the step that gets cut short -- served early, the rice cakes sit in a watery sauce that slides off them. Wait for it: the starch coming out of the tteok is what thickens it, so the sauce cannot be thickened any other way.
2. WHICH ALSO MEANS THE TTEOK ITSELF IS THE THICKENER, and so it must go in early and stay in. Cooked separately and added at the end, nothing thickens and you have rice cakes in chilli water.
3. HARD TTEOK IS SOAKED IN WARM WATER FIRST, 20 minutes, as the garaetteok page says. Straight from the fridge or freezer the outside dissolves into the sauce while the centre stays chalky -- which is the commonest fault in this dish and is entirely avoidable.
4. IT IS STIRRED OFTEN AND FROM THE BOTTOM. Rice cakes stick to the pan and to each other the moment they are left alone, and a stuck layer burns and taints the lot.
5. AND IT IS EATEN STRAIGHT AWAY. Off the heat the sauce keeps thickening and the tteok keeps absorbing: twenty minutes later it is a solid mass. This does not keep and does not reheat.
6. Garaetteok made as on its own page and cut into 5 cm lengths. If not freshly made, SOAKED in warm water 20 minutes and drained.
7. The stock, gochujang, gochugaru, sugar, soy sauce and garlic whisked together in a wide pan until the gochujang has dissolved.
8. Brought to the boil.
9. The tteok added and simmered 5 minutes, stirred from the bottom.
10. The fish cake strips added.
11. Cooked at a steady bubble 8 to 10 MINUTES more, stirred often, until the sauce is thick, glossy and clinging.
12. Tested: a rice cake should be chewy all the way through with no chalky centre. Another few minutes and a splash of stock if not.
13. The spring onions and halved boiled eggs folded in for the last minute.
14. The sesame oil stirred in off the heat, sesame seeds scattered, and served immediately.

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