Recipe: Korean spicy rice cakes | Ddukbokki, a guest post by the hubs

Since today is Leap Day, I’ve invited the hubs to guest blog. Leap Day tradition has genders switching roles for 24 hours—for example, women are supposed to propose to men on February 29th—but my idea of an exciting switch-up is to have John post instead.“You can post whatever you want: a rant, a review, or random thoughts,” was my parameter for his post.Being married to a cook (and being a very good cook himself), the hubs chose to write a recipe. Introducing John Suh, aka the hubs.***Growing up in the 80’s and early 90’s, there was no concept of low-carb diets, especially if you were first generation Korean-American. Most meals at home consisted of Some kind of stew as the main, a variety of pickled side dishes, and the accompanying big bowl of delicious carbs known as white rice. My mom always said that eating white rice and veggies was the healthiest thing you could eat. Fast-forward 20+ years, and carbs are the enemy, so this recipe is not for the carb haters.Often Korean food was built on layers of flavors with whatever resources were available. Just ten years ago, Korea wasn’t the economic power it is now, and often the popular dishes of today were yesterday’s poor mans food. One of my favorite Korean dishes is ddukbokki, Korean rice cakes cooked in a red pepper sauce with veggies and protein of your choice. It’s spicy, sweet, flavorful, and—best of all—loaded with glorious carb-o-licious rice cakes. I grew up eating this when my mom had left over dduk, or rice cakes. It was a great way to get rid of ingredients that were going to go bad soon. Most Korean foods were created this way.It’s a very simple dish but requires a few things you’ll probably need to run to your local Asian grocery store for. But I promise there will be no regrets!

Recipe: Korean Spicy Rice Cakes | Ddukbokki

Notes: A recipe from the hubs, John Suh

Ingredients

  1. 1 sheet kombu (dried kelp)
  2. 2 lbs rice cakes (dduk), typically 1 to 2 days old is best
  3. 1/2 c red pepper paste (gochujang)
  4. 1/2 c granulated sugar
  5. 2 tsp fine red pepper flakes (gochugaru)
  6. 4 cloves garlic, minced
  7. 1 onion, thinly sliced
  8. 4 sheets fish cake, chopped
  9. 4 stalks scallion, chopped into 1” pieces + more thinly cut on the bias for garnishing
  10. 2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Instructions

  1. Make dashi: Take a big wok or stockpot and fill with 2 qts water. Drop in the kombu. Bring it to a slow boil on medium-high heat. Once it starts boiling, bring it down to a medium, and time it for 15m. Remove the kombu and set aside 1 qt of the dashi (kombu broth) for the sauce. Leave the rest in the same pot.
  2. Reconstitute rice cakes: I usually buy the rice cakes (dduk) 2 days in advance. I want it to dry out a little so that I can rehydrate it with the konbu dashi water I just made. Take the reserved 1 qt of konbu dashi and drop the rice cake in piece by piece as you bring it to a slow boil on medium heat. After about 5-10m, the rice cake should become soft. Pull one out and you’ll be able to squeeze it fairly easily between your fingers but it should be springy. Then it’s time to pull them out on a baking pan or plate to let it stop cooking and dry off the excess water.
  3. Pan-fry the duck: To add a little texture to the dish and a slight roasted taste, take a large pan and drop it over a medium high heat. Once the pan is hot enough, drizzle some oil and drop the dduk in to the pan in a single layer. You want to get a nice light brown color and crust on the top and bottom of the dduk. Don’t over crowd the pan or else they’ll end up sticking to each other. Once you get a nice golden crust, remove from the pan and let it sit back on the baking sheet.
  4. Make sauce: Take the 1 qt of konbu dashi you made earlier and drop it into a clean pan. Turn the heat up to a medium high heat. Drop in the onion, scallion, red pepper flakes, red pepper paste, sugar, and garlic. Keep stirring the till the water starts to reduce down and create a thick bar-be-que sauce consistency.
  5. Once your sauce finally comes together, you can drop in your dduk and fish cake and drop the heat to a medium. Stir everything so the sauce coasts everything evenly. After about 2m, you’re ready to serve. You can plate it in a big serving bowl and garnish with a bit of sesame seeds and green onions finely cut on the bias.

Active time: 45m
Total time: 45m
Yields: 4 to 6 servings

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