tteokbokki (rice cakes in a spicy sauce)
Tteokbokki. Rice cakes in a spicy sauce. Popular street food in Korea and great comfort food to have at home. I love this dish, and have made this at least 100 times. It’s simple—there’s no need for any cutting or special technique—you mix everything together, heat and stir. In my version, I include ramen noodles, fish cake and lemon lime soda—all winners in my eyes. The lemon lime soda is the magic touch—it adds sweetness and that extra kick to this dish.
When I was a little girl, before I had even started school—I would daydream, A LOT. And the centerpiece of those daydreams would, a lot of times, involve food. I LOVED to eat, still do, but especially so as a little girl.
The Korean word for rabbit is tokki. And for whatever reason—I think it’s because tokki and tteokbokki begin and end in similar sounds, whenever someone mentioned tteokbokki—I would imagine a little orange bunny rabbit running amok, targeting the homes of Korean families, breaking in/hopping in through an open door, and eating all of their tteokbokki. It would always be a she—and her little, ravenous bunny rabbit mouth would be coated in the shiny, spicy sauce.
With that being said, this is absolutely delicious.
It tastes like someone making this late at night—time after time after time. I hope you enjoy it, and enjoyed the bunny rabbit story that came along with it!
Ingredients:
For 5 servings
2 pounds of cylinder-shaped rice cake (at my local Korean grocery store they’re sold in 2lb. bags)
5 cups of water
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
1 teaspoon of onion powder
1 teaspoon of dasida (powdered beef stock)
1 teaspoon of oyster sauce
1/2 cup of gochujang
2 tablespoons of finely ground gochugaru
1 tablespoon of sugar
3 tablespoons of lemon lime soda
1 pack of instant ramen noodles ( I prefer to use the instant, non-Korean brand you can find in mainstream grocery stores. These ramen noodles tend to be smaller and thinner)
1 cup of fish balls/square fish cake (at my local Korean grocery store I buy these in a bag from the freezer section)
Ingredients for tteokbokki, Columns, (L-R): Column 1—onion powder, oyster sauce, gochujang, gochugaru. Column 2—fish balls/squares, fish sauce, dasida, sugar. Column 3—rice cake, lemon lime soda, ramen noodles. Not pictured: 5 cups of water.
An up-close picture of dasida.
Directions:
In a large skillet, heat up your 5 cups of water on medium heat.
When the water is hot (doesn’t need to be boiling) add the fish sauce, onion powder, dasida and oyster sauce. Mix together until dissolved. This is the base broth of the tteokbokki that will give it a lot of flavor.
In a separate bowl add the gochujang, gochugaru, sugar and lemon lime soda.
Mix them together in the bowl.
Add the rice cakes, then the red sauce you mixed, to the skillet with the broth.
Mix the red sauce into the broth.
Turn up the heat to medium high. Cook for 10 minutes. Make sure to stir the tteokboki occasionally (every 2 minutes or so). You’ll notice that as time goes on, the sauce will become thicker—that’s because of the starch in the rice cakes—this is what you want!
Next, add the ramen noodles and fish balls/squares. Mix together.
Cook the tteokbokki, stirring occasionally, for an additional 7-10 minutes.
Depending on your stove it may take more or less time—the most important thing is to make sure the tteokbokki sauce reduces and thickens until it’s the consistency of a thin gravy.
Turn off the heat and serve as a snack or eat as a main dish. I garnished mine with some scallions. Enjoy!
