In the Korean peninsula, it is very popular to eat a bite at the street stalls: it is cheap and you are spoiled for choice. Among the various skewers of meat, fried or fish fries and chocolate sweets with questionable shapes, surely you will also find the now famous tteokbokki (떡붂 이), rice dumplings with a killer spiciness!
To bring a Korean flavor to your table, today I offer you the perfect recipe for cooking tteokbokki and making you and your friends become spitfire dragons!
Difficulty: Easy
Duration: 20 minutes (not including ingredients preparation)
Cost: low / medium
Ingredients
- 25 rice dumplings (about 500 grams);
- 500 ml of water;
- 7 dried anchovies (without heads and intestines);
- 15 x 20 cm of dried seaweed;
- 75 g of spicy sauce (gochujang);
- 1 tablespoon of spicy chili powder (gochugaru);
- 1 tablespoon of sugar;
- 3 leeks cut into 7 cm pieces or small onions;
- 2 hard-boiled eggs (if you like them);
- 200 gr of fish pie.
Removing the anchovies and the fish pie, this becomes a vegetarian dish! By eliminating the eggs you will get a vegan variant.
Preparation
- Fill a large pan with water, adding the dried anchovies and the seaweed. Without plating the pan, boil for about 15 minutes over medium heat and in a separate saucepan boil 2 eggs until they become firm. Meanwhile, in a bowl, mix the spicy sauce, the chili powder, and the sugar and on a cutting board cut into strips the leeks (or spring onions), in pieces of about 7 cm.
- At this point return to the pan, remove the anchovies and the seaweed, and add to the cooking water the rice dumplings, the contents of the bowl, leeks (or onions), boiled eggs (shelled) and the fish pie.
- Wait again for the contents of the pan to boil, and then begin to mix gently. Keep stirring until the sauce decreases in liquidity and the rice dumplings become soft (it takes about 10-15 minutes). If it took more time for the rice gnocchi to soften, do not despair! Just add a little more water.
Small tip: if you use frozen rice dumplings, once they are taken out of the freezer, soak them in cold water to promote softening!
Once you reach the desired softness of the rice dumplings, tteokbokki are finally ready to be served!
