duk bok ki

[torakris]

There is a specific Korean dish that I have eaten a couple times in Japan and I have no idea of what it is called since my Korean friends usually do the ordering when we are out. It is made with a type of Korean mochi, not the oval slices I know as tteok but pinky finger long non-hollow tubes. The package I have of them calls them toppogi (in Japanese).

I have only eaten this mochi served in a sautee with some vegetables (cabbage, onion, etc) and a quite saucy kochujang (I am assuming by the taste) based sauce. I tried searching Korean cookbooks at the bookstore and can find no reference to this dish that I love so much. Since I don't know the name I am having a problem searching the web. I tried making it once but it just wasn't the same!

anyone?

[skchai]

Kristin,

Those are also called tteok (which is a generic name for rice cake). The shape you're referring to is called tteokbokki tteok because it's usually used in stir-frys as opposed to the oval sliced kind, which is usually used in soups.

Tteokbokki comes in various forms but the most popular by far is the one in the hot kochujang sauce which you referred to. It's a major standby in street stalls ("pojang matcha") as well as fastfood snack ("bunshik") places. Probably the reason you're having a hard time finding it in cookbooks is that it's usually not considered a food you make at home. A more civilized version (not nearly as hot) can sometimes be found, however, under the name "tteok bokkeum". Bokkeum means stir-fry and bokki is a cute alternative term for the same thing. It became a popular cheap snackfood in the 1960s or so, where people used to sit around coal-fired burners and have the tteokbokki prepared at their tables, inhaling the lethal combination of frying chilies and burning hydrocarbons.

There isn't really any need for a recipe - you just stir fry a little shredded marinated meat and/or fishcake (usually oden-style, not pink kamaboko) in oil with garlic, as well as perhaps thinly sliced onions and/or carrots and/or kimchi. Then you add the rice cake, kochujang and soy sauce to taste. If the rice cake has been refrigerated or sitting around for a while, you add a bit of water and cover to soften it up a bit. Otherwise you just stir it around until heated and pour it out. Garnish with sesame seeds and/or finely chopped green onions. But you can really do whatever you want. Popular modifications are "ra-bokki" with ramen noodles or "cchol-bokki" with chewy chinese noodles. You can even add Spam.

Edited September 22, 2003 by skchai (log)

[jrufusj]

Kristin:

I would agree with skchai that you don't really need a recipe to make tteokbokki. From reading other posts of yours, I suspect that you have palate that is pretty well attuned to Korean flavor profiles. You should be able to tell when you've got it right.

However, I can PM you a recipe if you would like. It is from a copyrighted book, so it would be more appropriate to PM it. It may take a little while as I have to dig up my bunshik cookbook and translate from Korean to English. I am flying to Tokyo tomorrow afternoon, so it may have to wait until this weekend. Please let me know if you would like me to send the recipe.

Another tteokbokki variation (though not too common) is to use the same basic ingredients, but to substitute a curry sauce for the gochujang sauce. The curry sauce is similar to that used in Japanese curry rice.

A friend of mine puts golbaengi (a snail-like creature) in her tteokbokki and it goes very well. Many street stalls also include whole boiled eggs in the tteokbokki.

Jim

[torakris]

Jim I would love the recipe and will be willing to wait for it.

I could probably figure it out, after a couple more tries.............

It was just missing something and then I tried to add a little more soy for some depth and I really threw it off, it was ok but it wasn't the same.

Are these kind of mochi used in anything else except these stirfries?

[skchai]

Occassionally you'll see it in Korean-style Oden, or in braises such as kalbi-cchim.

It's not like the shape is crucial to the taste, at any rate; it's mostly just tradition. You can substitute the oval kind without arousing the wrath of heaven (although if it's very thinly sliced you don't cook it as long). If fact, a lot of the tteokbokki they sell on the street is made from the oval kind before it's sliced, i.e. a big cylinder that you have to hold on a stick like a popsicle.

[torakris]

I prefer this long one to the oval, I like the "bite" it gives.

There is just something about it in that spicy sauce that I just can't get enough of......

[Jinmyo]

I prefer the oval tteok because I prefer it in soups. But it's wonderful however it is.

[jrufusj]

Jim I would love the recipe and will be willing to wait for it.

Kristin:

I dug through my house today and can't seem to find my bunshik cookbook. However, this link to a ddeokbokki recipe may help.

I can't vouch for this exact recipe, as I've never used it, but it should help you get rough proportions, which you can then adjust to suit your preferences. One thing I would note is that it calls for "chives". This should not mean what is ordinarily called chives in English and not what would be called puchu or kol p'a in Korean. It is what we would call a spring onion or a little larger. In Korean, this would be either ordinary p'a or dae p'a. If you were to use aonegi or naganegi, you would be just fine.

Varieties of ddeokbokki are described with recipes on this page. Unfortunately, it is in Korean, so it will only be helpful to some. I don't know whether you read a little Korean or have a friend who can help. I can help with individual translation problems, but translating the top page and all its children would take me forever, given my meager skills.

I'll keep looking for the cookbook and post a translation of that recipe when I find it.

Good luck,

Jim

[torakris]

Thanks Jim!

I will give that recipe a try!

[margaret]

As I said in the Dinner thread, reading this yesterday reminded me how much I used to like tteokbokki. I hadn't had it for a few years, since college, where I used to scam a Korean friend into making it for me every few weeks.

She used her mom's recipe, I think, and it was sweeter than the tteokbokki I've had in restaurants. I liked that about it, though - the balance of sweet and hot is one of the things I like about this dish, and a little extra sweetness gave it a snacky feel.

Chewy rice cakes, thick spicy sweet sauce, fresh green oniony flavor. I wish I had remembered to bring some to work today to snack on.

Have you tried making this again, Kristin?

[margaret]

Varieties of ddeokbokki are described with recipes on this page.  Unfortunately, it is in Korean, so it will only be helpful to some.

For some reason, the web page linked to shows up in Chinese on my computer. Could it be something with my browser settings?

[jrufusj]

Varieties of ddeokbokki are described with recipes on this page.  Unfortunately, it is in Korean, so it will only be helpful to some.

For some reason, the web page linked to shows up in Chinese on my computer. Could it be something with my browser settings?

Margaret:

If you are using Internet Explorer, go to:

View:Encoding

If you see Korean as an option, select that.

If not, select "More", then scroll down and select "Korean". That should allow you to view the page in Hangul.

Good luck,

Jim

[helenjp]

How about this recipe?

http://www.cookbooksforsale.com/displayRec...ist/display.htm

...now I'm disappointed, because I thought for a minute you were talking about those pancake rolls, Milsum...

[chengb02]

okay, i hope i got the romanization right...this is the korean dish made up of long, thin rice cakes in hot bean paste. There is a Korean noraebang place near me that makes an absolutely perfect version of this dish (at least to my taste), but me not being Korean, I'm unsure as to the true way to make it. Too often, mine either comes out too watery or too spicy. I'm not sure if I'm missing ingredients either, but I typically use the rice cakes, hot bean paste, water, and sugar...I have tried, at a Korean friend's suggestion, adding cabbage a few times...Any other ingredients needed? Any tips as to proportions of each ingredient? Thanks!

[chengb02]

must apologize, with all the different spellings I guess that is why my search failed...

[skchai]

As I mentioned in the previous thread, common add-ins include small slices of beef, fishcake, onions, carrots, and / or kim chi, as well as noodles of various kinds. But it's something that's meant to be played with - if you're making it home, you can use a different combination everytime.

Here's some non-traditional suggestions: I like to add fatty pork products (bacon or spam), crisply precooked, as well as (in compensation?) nearly raw chopped green onions, briefly blanched snow peas. I one dumped a lot of sauteed pine nuts on top as well for flavor contrast.

[Yong Tae Kim]

I think that their is a constant debate among dukbokki connoisseurs on what the base sauce should be based on to produce that authentic street stall flavor.

1. Gochujang (the Korean red chili paste) based sauce. This results in a sweet but slightly heavy tasting sauce that tastes unmistakably like gochujang. From what I have been able to observe at the ubiquitous street carts in Seoul that sell dukbokki, the gochujang is mixed with clear corn syrup and MSG derived beef flavoring powder and water (or water from boiled oden).

2. Gochugaru (dried red chili powder) based sauce. Finely ground Korean red chili powder is mixed with clear corn syrup and MSG derived beef flavoring powder and water (or water from boiled oden). This results in a very hot and clean tasting sauce.

There probably is a 'secret ingredient' that makes street 'dukbokki' taste different than the homemade variety. Anybody know what this could be?

[mongo_jones]

I think that their is a constant debate among dukbokki connoisseurs on what the base sauce should be based on to produce that authentic street stall flavor.

1. Gochujang (the Korean red chili paste) based sauce. This results in a sweet but slightly heavy tasting sauce that tastes unmistakably like gochujang. From what I have been able to observe at the ubiquitous street carts in Seoul that sell dukbokki, the gochujang is mixed with clear corn syrup and MSG derived beef flavoring powder and water (or water from boiled oden).

2. Gochugaru (dried red chili powder) based sauce. Finely ground Korean red chili powder is mixed with clear corn syrup and MSG derived beef flavoring powder and water (or water from boiled oden). This results in a very hot and clean tasting sauce.

There probably is a 'secret ingredient' that makes street 'dukbokki' taste different than the homemade variety. Anybody know what this could be?

as per my wife--who has been yearning for years for the street dukbokki of her youth in seoul--the secret ingredient may well be indian chilli powder. of course, this is unlikely to be true but she claims to have made the breakthrough with her own version when she started adding some of my chilli powder to her own take on the kochujang version.

would that qualify as indo-korean fusion?

asks one, with tongue in cheek, who eats a "fusion" meal every day just by virtue of the fact that the panchan are brought out for most every meal whether the main dishes were cooked by me or her. as such i can only laugh at the starched-shirtness of those who sniff that kim chi doesn't go with indian food for x,y or z reason--in our home it goes with it 7-8 times a week whether the purists like it or not.

[skchai]

Since I happenned to make tteokbokki for dinner last night, I thought I might try a crude, pseudo-eCGI style "play-by-play" or "look & cook" (my son's favorite cookbook series).

O.K., so we start off with the tteok. It's one package of "tteokbokki tteok", i.e. the plain, cylindrical kind that is about 1 cm. in diameter. Cut it into about 4-5 cm lengths. You can also use "tteokguk tteok", which is about twice as thick, in which case you would cut it into thin slices about 0.5 cm. thick. Whichever way you do it, make sure that the pieces are separated. If they're stuck together, rinse them in warm water and pry them apart with your fingers before using, otherwise you'll have huge conglomerate boulders of tteok to deal with latter.

Here are the bottled seasoning ingredients that I had ready. From left to right: hot chili bean paste (gochujang), malt syrup (mulyeot), sesame oil, soy sauce, and roasted sesame seeds. These are all common things you can get at any Korean-oriented grocery. Other things you need are garlic, green onions, and Korean chile powder.

I just made a simple beef tteokbokki, without a lot of additional main ingredients. The main reason being that we didn't have a lot of additional main ingredients in our house. Take partially defrosted boneless galbi meat, cut it into matchstick-size pieces, and marinated it with . . . something. Approximate recreation - for 0.5 lbs. beef, mix in 1 Tbsp. minced garlic (I know that's a lot - you can use less), 2 Tbsp. soy sauce, 1 Tbsp. malt syrup, 1 Tbsp. sesame oil.

Chop up a bunch of large-diameter green onions roughly (enough to make about 3/4 cup unpacked - I know that's a lot - you can use less), and put it aside.

Drain the beef out of its marinade, which you reserve, and saute it for a while in a little oil until just done.

• If it's reasonably tender meat, which this was, take it out and put it to the side so that it won't get overcooked.
  
• If it's tough meat, then leave it in to stew with the tteok until it reaches the "moist-tenderness" stage.
  

Cook the tteokbokki tteok in the reserved marinade and a few tablespoons of extra water or beef broth.

• You can add matchstick-sliced carrots or chinese cabbage at this point if desired.
  
• If you are adding dried noodles to the tteokbokki, put them in with the tteok at this point. You should adjust the total amount of noodles and tteok so that it comes out to about four generous servings.
  
• If you are making tteokbokki without beef or other marinated meat, you should use about 1/4 cup extra water or broth.
  
• If you are making it with flat fishcake slices, it's probably best to use a dried fish-type broth, but that's up to you.
  
• If you're making it with Spam, God bless you!
  

Bring to a boil, cover over medium heat, and let soften for about 5 minutes - watch it so that it doesn't get too gooey. The starch leaching from the tteok will thicken the sauce to a muddish color.

Uncover, and add the meat back in to heat. At this point I take out a bunch of the tteokbokki for my daughter, who dislikes anything hot or green. . .

Add about 2 Tbsp. gochujang and 1 Tbsp. chile powder to the mix. Taste to see if it's salty enough, and add more soy sauce if this is necessary.

• You can add fresh noodles at about the same time you add the additional seasonings.
  
• If you made your tteokbokki with flat fishcake instead of marinated meat, you need more salt, and should add about about 2 Tbsp. of soy sauce at any rate at this point, or use 1/4 cup gochujang in place of the gochujang and chile powder.
  

These variations will lead you to something I judge to be "moderately hot" and "somewhat salty", though you may find this subjective.

Stir in the chopped green onions, and lay out on a plate if you're being pretentious. Sprinkle sesame seeds over it and serve.

[jschyun]

edit will be back with post

Edited March 9, 2004 by jschyun (log)

[skchai]

Just posted a description and couple pictures of the tabletop tteokbokki offered at Yuchun Restaurant in Honolulu:

Here it is.

[mongo_jones]

has anyone tried adding some hot indian chilli powder to their dok bok ki? as i mentioned earlier my wife has started doing this and she swears it makes it more like the korean street version.

[skchai]

Hmm. . . have to admit I've never even tried cooking with Indian hot chili powder. I always did the opposite from what you wife does, substituting Korean chili powder into Indian recipes. Didn't realize that there are major differences. . .

[mongo_jones]

Hmm. . . have to admit I've never even tried cooking with Indian hot chili powder. I always did the opposite from what you wife does, substituting Korean chili powder into Indian recipes. Didn't realize that there are major differences. . .

my wife cooks with hot bean pastes and what look more like chilli flakes than chilli powder--what does your korean chilli powder look like skchai? if it has the same relationship to indian chilli powder that korean "curry" has to indian curry powder it may be different indeed.

i am speaking here though of the really hot chilli powders. not all brands available in the u.s specify type of chilli or heat level.

[skchai]

Korean chili powders come in many different varieties (as do Indian). The coarse flaky kind is the type usually used for kimchee, which there is also a more finely ground type that is used, garam masala-like, to top off sauces just before they are served.