I’ve been on a roll cooking up Korean food lately. I have a few more dishes I need to learn before I can say I know all the basics of Korean cooking. Then I can finally cross that off my bucket list! Lately, I’ve been craving the street food in Korea like tteokbokki or ddukbokki. I especially like the ones they sell on a stick!
Tteokbokki is supposed to be one of those dishes that’s really simple and easy to make, so I decided to give it a try. I was pretty happy with the end result, and Jacob told me it was the best tteokbokki he’s ever had. He may be a bit biased since a happy wife = happy life. But you should try it and let me know what you think!
Ddukbokki Recipe | Korean Food 떡볶이
(adapted from my mom’s recipe and maangchi)
Ingredients:
- 7 large size dried anchovies, with heads and intestines removed
- 6 x 8 inch of dashima / dried kelp
- 4 cups of water
- 16 oz package of cylinder-shaped rice cake
- 1/4 cup Korean hot pepper paste
- 1 tablespoon ketchup
- 1 tablespoon Korean hot pepper flakes
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 2 hard-boiled eggs (optional)
- ½ pound fish cakes (optional)
- 3 green onions, cut into 3 inch long pieces
Directions:
- Add the dried anchovies, dried kelp, and water to a shallow pot or pan.
- Bring to a boil over medium-high heat without the lid (approx 15 mins).
- Remove the anchovies and kelp and discard.
- Add the rice cake, hot pepper paste, ketchup, sugar, hot pepper flakes, garlic, fish cakes, and hard-boiled eggs to the soup base.
- Continue to stir so that the rice cake does not stick to the bottom until the sauce thickens (approx 10 minutes).
- Add green onions and stir in for a minute.
- Remove from the heat and serve hot.
Chef’s Notes:
- Depending on how sweet or spicy you like it, add more sugar or hot pepper paste.
- You’ll see in the photo below that I added in the green onions in step four and they got too soggy.
- I put a slice of mozzarella cheese on top. I don’t think that’s the kind people normally use.
- It’s an easy recipe, but if you want to take an easier route, there’s an instant version.
Have you tried making What’s your favorite Korean dish? Maybe I will try to make that next. 
