Adventures in Food: Ddeokbokki, Ddeokgochi...

Happycake used to go on and on about something called "ddeokbokki" when we talked about Korean food, praising it to the high heavens. Before I took my leap into Korean culture I had no idea what she was talking about–until the day I tasted it myself at the Koreatown Plaza food court in Los Angeles. For those of you still utterly confused, "ddeokbokki" refers to Korean rice cakes smothered in the spiciest red sauce imaginable. It is often combined with fish cakes and is super comforting on cold days.

Conversely, "ddeokgochi" refers to the same rice cakes stuck on a skewer and fried till crisp on the outside, then doused in an equally spicy but slightly sweeter sauce. For a while we enjoyed both versions of the treat at the KTP, when inevitably today my mom decided that we should attempt making it ourselves. I'll admit, at first I was wary of the thought–what if we couldn't make it to the degree of deliciousness that existed at the food court? As it turns out, I was fearful of nothing–with a little help from the internet and the friendly ahjumma at our local Korean market, we ended up making something spectacular.

We started out at first with this toolkit for making ddeokbokki, which was first advertised to us by that same ahjumma. Intrigued, we took home a couple of the kits, which look like this inside:

Red is the color of SPICY.

A note about this particular package: you do need to boil the rice cakes in water first before combining them with the sauce (which also has instructions on diluting it first–they weren't kidding about the spice level). Being adventurous and unsure about what we were doing following our instincts, we also bought a package of already-soft rice cakes at the market and simply boiled those with the diluted sauce.

These rice cakes were freshly-made and wrapped in plastic...originally.

Rice cakes and sauce.

Another note: if you're worried about how thin the diluted sauce is, fear not! The starch from the rice cakes will thicken up the sauce once you let the mixture sit for a few minutes.

And that's pretty much how you make ddeokbokki from a package. But what about the fried version, ddeokgochi?

Frying these rice cakes is not the sticky disaster some might believe. As long as you keep your oil heat at around medium and watch carefully for the crispy crust that forms out the outside of the cakes when they're about finished, you'll be fine. It is also interesting to note that the cakes actually loosen from the bottom of the pan when they're ready to flip and/or be taken out.

Be sure to check out the sauce recipe at the link below!

Our thanks goes out to whoever this person with the fabulous ddeokgochi sauce recipe was, and props to maangchi.com for having such awesome people on their forums. Without this sauce recipe, our ddeokgochi would not have been as amazing as it was:

The best way to enjoy this crunchychewyspicysweet dish? Stab it with a chopstick straight out of the bowl. Seriously, just do it.

Just let this sink in a little.

Be warned–it's difficult to stop eating these once you get started. It's best to make extra and store it in an airtight container for that night in alone you're having with your favorite drama emergencies.

Happy eating!

~BeanSprout