Korean specialties

For those of you who like watching Korean movies or dramas, you must be familiar with food called tteokbokki. Food with the main ingredients of rice cakes mixed with spicy sauce is indeed quite popular in Korea and is widely sold in food stalls.

In Indonesia alone, this food began to gain popularity since K-Pop culture was widely favored by teenagers. At present, tteokbokki and various other Korean specialties can be obtained cheaply in Korean-style restaurants or food stalls that are starting to mushroom in big cities.

Well, if you want to try this Korean food, you can also make it yourself at home.

Tteokbokki is a Korean food that has been around since the Joseon dynasty. It is said that at that time tteokbokki was not red and had a spicy taste like this. At that time, Koreans called it tungokboki gungjung and had a brown color and tastes tend to be tasteless.

At this time gungjung tteokbokki is made from a mixture of tteok (rice cake), meat, vegetables, and other spices. The rice cake used also usually consists of 5 colors which symbolize Korean countries such as white, black, red, yellow, and blue.

During the Japanese occupation, new spices called gochujang or spicy pasta were made from chili. The spices are then widely used for making tteokbokki so that the color and taste finally become what we know today, red and spicy.

At present, tteokbokki has also begun to be made with various variations. Some of them are "Shanghai Topokki" which is a mixture of tteokbokki with Chinese oyster sauce, "Rabokki" which is a combination of tteokbokki with ramyeon, and "Tteok kkochi" which is tteokbokki which is processed by frying.

Tteokbokki Materials

After knowing the history and origin, now let's begin the process of making it. First of all, let's prepare the ingredients first. These ingredients will be divided into three types, namely to make garaetteok, the sauce, and the main ingredients.

Garaetteok ingredients:

350 grams of rice flour 120 ml of water 1 teaspoon of salt 1 tablespoon of sesame oil

Sauce seasoning ingredients:

2 tablespoons of gochujang or Korean chili paste 1 tsp of Korean chili powder or you can also use 1/2 tsp of local chilli powder 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar

The main ingredient:

500 grams of garaetteok (if you don't want to make it yourself) 500 ml of water1 onion cloves which are cut into boxes of leaf onions which are cut into large pieces 250 grams of fish cake cut into pieces with a size of 5cm200 grams of carrots cut to 5cm in length

How to make Garaetteok

What we will make for the first time is garaetteok or rice keu because this is the main ingredient in making tteokbokki. If you are lazy to make it, then you can also buy garaetteok that has been made at the nearest supermarket.

But if you want to hone your cooking skills, then there is no harm in trying to make it yourself. Following are the steps:

Put the rice flour, water, and salt in the container or mix them all together. Steam the mixture for 25 minutes over medium heat. Lift the mixture while it's still hot then mash it using wood or a mixer until smooth. Next coat your hands with sesame oil .Take one piece of the dough and form it into a cylindrical length. Cut the cylindrical dough in 5 cm long. Now, Garaetteok is ready to use.

How to make Tteokbokki

After the rice cake is ready, now let's proceed to how to make the tteokbokki. First of all, please mix all the ingredients to make spices in one container then stir until evenly distributed. After that, please follow the steps below:

Add water to the pan and then boil for 15 minutes or boil. After boiling, please enter garaetteok, seasoning sauce, onions, onion, fish cake, and carrots. Stir in all the ingredients so that the ingredients are evenly spread. stir, boil all the ingredients until the water shrinks and the sauce becomes thick. Turn off the stove then serve the tteokbokki while it's still hot.

Now that's a recipe and steps for making simple Korean tteokbokki. You can also reduce or add various other ingredients to the recipe such as mushrooms, zucchini, Korean anchovy, and others.

You can eat Tteokbokki directly or be served together with other Korean specialties such as kimchi and kimbab.