Halal Gochujang: On A Mission to Find My Perfect Gochujang

Hi. We meet again. Excuse my silly title; I was just too uninspired at the moment because my dream has burst into tiny little speckles.

Why?

Let me tell you why.

I was watching a Korean drama on KBS World. Can't recall what the drama was, too distracted to take note since I am just an occasional watcher. In a certain scene, the actresses were eating ddeokbokki, a type of spicy, stir fried rice cakes. I started salivating. I might as well be hungry.

I am not a stranger to Korean cuisine. I love kimchi. I love the dakgalbi. What else? Hmm…

So... I am very interested to try ddeokbokki but in true, domestic goddess style (haha), I want to try to cook them at home.

Off I went to the trusted www in search for the said recipe. Type ddeokbokki and walla!

One site caught my interest, that’s Maangchi.com. Click, click, click… hmmm…

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of cylinder shaped rice cake, bought or homemade. (Use a little more if you’re not adding hard boiled eggs and fish cakes) <-- I can make this. So simple (recipe on Maangchi as well)
• 4 cups of water <-- Oh yeah.
• 7 large size dried anchovies, with heads and intestines removed <-- have lots at home
• 6 x 8 inch dried kelp <-- saw this at Aeon Station 18. Can go and pick one packet up
• 1/3 cup hot pepper paste <-- saw this at Aeon Station 18 too
• 1 tbs hot pepper flakes <-- saw this at Aeon Station 18 too
• 1 tbs sugar <-- in the pantry! (cewah pantry... hehe)
• 3 green onions, cut into 3 inch long pieces <-- skip this, doesn't like green onion
• 2 hard boiled eggs, shelled (optional) <-- can make this easily
• ½ pound fish cakes (optional) <-- have some in the fridge

When we finally went to Aeon Station 18, I was excited to pick up those ingredients. Dried kelps, checked. Hot pepper flakes. Checked. Hot pepper paste?

There's this kind of big sign displayed on the rack, which said,

Dear customer. Please check the ingredients before purchasing.

*bells ringing*

So I took a tub. Haechandle brand. I take a look at the ingredient list and saw cooking rice wine. *sigh* I took another tub. CJ brand. The translated ingredients looks like this.

I was happy. But then I looked at the foreign Korean alphabets which I thought was the ingredient list. There’s no way it contains only those stated, I thought.

So I took a picture. Put the tub back, alongside hot pepper flakes and dried kelps. Ddeokbokki can wait. But haram things in my stomach? God forbids.

Luckily I know how to translate the list (with the help of Google Translator)… and here goes.

Rice. Yeay.

Pepper powder. Yeay.

Corn syrup. Yeay.

Pepper sauce which contains pepper powder, salt, garlic, Chinese onion. Yeay.

Water. Yeay.

Isomalt whatever. Yeay?

Pepper whatever fermented soybean. Yeay?

Salt. Yeay.
SPIRITS? OHHHHH NOOOOOO!!!!

lost in translation?

Here goes my ddeokbokki. Down into the drain.

Anyone knows where I could get an alcohol-free store bought gochujang in Ipoh? I’ll be forever indebted. Hehe.



Cik Atun: Moral of the story, NEVER trust the translated ingredient list. You may regret it later.