Tteokbokki aka Spicy Korean Rice Cakes
Tteokbokki has got to be one of the most popular Korean foods in and out of Korea. In Korea, it’s a cheap and cheerful snack enjoyed by kids and adults alike from street stalls and lunch restaurants.
Outside of Korea, chewy rice cakes swimming in a sweet-and-spicy sauce (often depicted in Kdramas) have garnered a raving following.
The humble rice cake snack.
Basic 1-2-3 Tteokbokki Ingredients
Gochujang (Korean Red Pepper Paste)
Sugar
Rice Cakes
That’s all you need. The end. You’re welcome. 😂.
How to Buy Tteok (Rice Cakes) for Tteokbokki
You’ll find options for rice cakes at the Korean grocery store.
The best is to buy fresh. These are rice cakes sold on styrofoam trays with plastic wrap over them. These have been baked (?) fresh and won’t last long (a day or two at the most, and will have to be frozen to keep longer). Sometimes you won’t even find them because they’ve sold out for the day.
Usually found near baked goods (breads and pastries) or a dedicated Fresh Tteok section. If you see them in a refrigerated area, that means they’re fresh from the bakery but they’re a few days old and will have to be cooked or frozen when you get them home. Has the least amount of preservatives.
When bought fresh, they are delicious eaten as is when still soft (the same day you buy them). Dip them in some honey or maple syrup. If you want to do something to them, just give them a quick fry in a dry pan until it blisters a bit and sprinkle sugar before eating a hearty snack.
Rice cakes come in long, fat cylinders (GaraeTteok) or smaller cylinders or disks. It’s really whatever you prefer. You can always cut GaraeTteok to your desired thickness as well. One thing to note though is that rice cakes to make Tteokbokki will always be white. The pastel coloured ones are dessert rice cakes that you just enjoy as is.
Frozen rice cakes may be more accessible and are completely fine to use. They’re definitely easier to stock regularly at home. Easily found in many shapes and sizes.
How to Buy Gochujang
Regular Gochujang https://amzn.to/3bXBj3J
Mild Gochujang https://amzn.to/32QSApQ
All-Natural Preservative Free Gochujang https://amzn.to/39PF9cD (you may need to add more Sugar to get to the flavour-bomb taste you’d get with regular Gochujang that has artificial flavourings)
How to Make the Simplest Tteokbokki Known to (Wo)Man and Child
Mix equal parts Gochujang to Sugar. Add less sugar if you like heat, but this ratio guarantees a winner for the masses.
Add some water to thin out the sauce.
Cook until sauce thickens.
Add Tteok.
Done.
Shocking, right?
Add some green onions for colour. Bulk it up with fish cakes, instant noodles (without sauce packet), random veg like carrots, add SPAM if you’re into it. Slice some spicy chili peppers (like CheongYang Peppers) if you crave more heat. But this is becoming real cooking now lol.
Remember that rice cakes are already cooked (even if frozen) and Gochujang is a ready-to-eat paste. You’re not cooking anything, just heating it up basically, so don’t stand at the stove too long.
So that’s it? That’s really the end?
Let’s move on to Part Deux. Get ready to level up, friends.
How to Enjoy Tteokbokki Sauce
aka How to Make Jjaguli
Return Tteokbokki sauce to the stove on low heat.
Add rice on top and smoosh that sucker down so it’s a nice flat layer on top.
Let it sit so rice develops a bit of a crust.
Drizzle Toasted Sesame Oil.
Mix everything up until rice is nicely coated in sauce.
Crush plenty of crunchy Roasted & Seasoned Gim (Seaweed Sheets) on top.
Garnish with Toasted Sesame Seeds if feeling it.
Continue on low heat if you want more crust. Enjoy Gochujang fueled carb-coma!
The order doesn’t really matter, I prefer my Gim as a crunchy topping on top, but OPPA has mixed everything up and cooked it that way. Honestly, we were too hungry to pay attention and it’s a miracle I even got the photographic evidence lol.
You get the gist, right?
Also referred to as 짜글이 aka Jjaguli which is when you take leftover thickened sauce (can be from stews as well) and you cook it down and mix it up with rice.
Jjaguli is definitely a comfort food. I think it originated with just adding rice to leftover sauce if you were still hungry but now people make a dish from scratch just to enjoy rice this way.
Here is a Korean comedian with Prof. Paik (Korea’s beloved TV cook) making some Jjaguli from scratch featuring dun dun dunnn SPAM! Here it is- it’s in Korean, but the subtitles are pretty good.