First time making Tteokbokki (or tteokbokki-ish) and I probably need to work on the plating, but damn it tasted good.
Ingredients (serves several)
- 1 tsp minced fresh ginger
- 3 tbsps Korean hot pepper paste (gochujang)
- 1 tbsp Korean hot pepper flakes (gochugaru)*
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp of Mirin
- ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
- a little fish sauce (I eyeballed it, sorry)
- 1 shallot thinly sliced lengthways
- 4 green onions cut into 5cm (2-inch) pieces
- 500g (1lb) pork belly, skinless, cut into thin (3-4mm (⅛-inch)) slices 5-7cm (2 to 3-inch) long
- 250g (½lb) sliced chestnut mushrooms
- a bit of lemon juice (just a tad toward the end to add some acidity to cut the richness a bit – again eyeballed)
- A packet of rice cakes
- A little bit of the water reserved from pre-boiling the rice cakes
- green parts of spring onions, sliced
- toasted sesame seeds
Method
- In a large bowl, mix everything before the shallots into a paste, add the Pork Belly piece by piece, making sure that each piece is coated on both sides, then add the shallots and green onions and mix. Set to one side to marinate. *I didn't have any gochugaru so I substituted 1 tbsp of sweet paprika and 1 tsp of cayenne pepper)
- Set the rice cakes to boil in a pan with lots of water, with just a pinch of salt. Let them boil for 8-10 minutes until soft.
- Use a spider or tongs to get the rice cakes out of the water – they're slippery little buggers – and place them aside.
- Add some oil to a hot wok or large frying pan, then add the pork mix. Use a spatula to make sure you get all the saucy goodness form the bowl.
- Cook, stirring for a couple of minutes until the pork is cooked – that shouldn't take too long as the pork is so thinly sliced – then add a ladle or so of the rice cake water to add some moisture and make the sauce silkier.
- Taste it, and squeeze in a little lemon juice at this point if it's a bit too rich.
- Add the rice cakes. You can let it go with the lid on for a minute or two to help cooking, or with the lid off if you want to reduce the sauce a bit to make it even richer and thicker.
- Turn off the heat and stir in the green parts from the green onions.
- Plate it up and garnish with toasted sesame seeds and the sliced parts of the green onions
Koreans reading this will probably be appalled, but it was really good..
by -maffu-