Korean Food: Halal Spicy Rice Cake (Tteokbokki) Recipe

Hey everyone.

Did anyone remember that I was on a mission to find halal gochujang (fermented hot pepper paste)? After 4 years 4 months of searching high and low (overly dramatic here, but you know what I meant)…

I finally find halal gochujang! Locally made to boot! I’ll elaborate more on this later since this post is all about 떡볶이, tteokbokki or ddukbokki or toppokki, however you spell it~

Since I got my hands on gochujang, I really want to try making tteokbokki at home because a plate cost you RM10 at Dubuyo. It is a small serving and it is not enough for my big stomach. Huhu.

Mind you this is my first try, and Dubuyo’s version is lighter in colour (I wonder why) and a lot less spicy too. Maybe next time I’m making this I should decrease the amount of gochugaru (hot pepper flakes) I’m using.

So, without further ado. Tadaaaaaa…!

My version of tteokbokki

I got the recipe from maangchi.com and while it is delicious, it is also very spicy. I followed the recipe almost to the T, so next time I knew how to adjust the ingredients to suit my taste bud.

Tteokbokki 

(adapted from maangchi.com)

400-500g of cylinder shaped rice cake (I bought mine at Jaya Grocer for RM9.90, soak in water for 5-10 minutes before cooking)

4 cups of water

A handful of dried anchovies (remove head, bone and intestines)

8 pieces of dried kelp (Ottogi brand)

⅓ cup gochujang (hot pepper paste)

1 tbsp gochugaru (hot pepper flakes) – decrease to ½ tbsp if you want it less spicy

1 tbsp brown sugar – add ½ tbsp if you want it sweeter

1 stalk of green onions, cut into 3 inch long pieces

1 hard boiled eggs, shelled (optional)

150g fish ball/fish cake (optional)

Direction

1. Add water, dried anchovies and dried kelp in shallow cast iron pan (if you have it) or plain old Tefal (to make it easier to clean it later).

2. Boil for about 15 minutes on high heat.

3. Meanwhile combine gochujang, gochugaru and sugar in a small bowl.

4. After 15 minutes, turn down the heat to low and remove dried kelp and anchovies. Discard these since the flavour already transferred into the broth.

5. Add rice cake and mixture in the bowl into the pot. On medium heat, stir gently until it starts to boil.

6. Add fish ball/fish cake and green onion and let it simmer. The broth will thicken as the rice cake turn soft. Keep stirring until the broth is at the right consistency (thick and shiny) and remove from heat.

Ready to serve!

I didn’t add the hard-boiled egg since I didn’t boil it hard enough. I was worried it would break and mess up the taste so I put it in the plates when I serve. I was happy with how the dish turned out and was happier when hubs said he loved it (he did complain that it was spicy though). 😅

Did you notice that no salt added into the dish? Well, that’s because gochujang already contains salt and dried anchovies are supposed to be salty too. However, the gochujang I bought was homemade, and when I tried it, it wasn’t as salty as I would have expected. I was told that store bought version is saltier, but I cannot attest to that since I never bought one because it is not halal, remember?

Considering how successful this dish was, I am excited to try making more Korean food in the future. Truth to be told, I already tried cooking dakkgalbi before making this dish, however! There were so many ingredients missing so I don’t really consider that as an all-rounder success but it does taste like Mr. Dakgalbi’s. When I do try it again, I’ll make sure to share the outcome here.

Till then.