Making Korean Food 2: Dukbokki!

Perhaps my favorite treat that I would get at the Korean restaurant in Provo was the spicy rice cakes: dukbokki. I'm a big weenie when it comes to spicy, so it totally KILLS my mouth to eat it, but it is oh so yummy!

One thing I was looking forward to when I came to Korea was being able to sit down and grab some dukbokki. For some reason, though, I've had troubles finding it. Also, no one wants it and I can't eat a whole plate by myself.

Aw, snap.

So, what's a girl to do? Why, cook it MYSELF, of course!

I set off in search of a dukbokki recipe. There were lots... and lots. So I settled on one that DIDN'T require me to gut packaged anchovies, and made me some yummy dukbokki.

The ingredients are pretty simple (well, if you're in a place that you can buy the Korean ingredients you need):

500g pack of rice cakes (I prefer the ones that look like little tubes)
Hot pepper paste
Sugar
Water
Onions

Simple, no?



I just cooked up the onions really quick (a bit of oil in the pan) and then set them aside.



Then what you do is bring 4 cups of water to a boil and then toss in your rice cakes, 4-6 tablespoons of hot pepper sauce, and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Boil it all for about 10 minutes.

Surprisingly, sugar was a difficult item to get. For one, It's kept by the SALT. Salt looks very much like sugar. Also, I must have access to crappy dictionaries because I could not find the word for sugar on ANYTHING. I finally found one... it's organic cane sugar. Whatever. More expensive, but I wanted dukbokki!



The hot pepper paste lives up to it's name. Don't taste it on your finger before putting it in the pot. It is very spicy. Also, I've washed my hands a million times since then and I'm still not looking forward to sticking my fingers in my eyes to take out my contacts tonight. Eep!



After it had been boiling a while, I added in the onions so that they, too, could get permeated with the sweet, spicy flavor. It smelled SO good while it was cooking.



You boil the thing for about ten minutes. I've been warned that this is where it gets tricky. If you don't cook the rice cakes long enough, they will be too hard. If you cook it TOO long, they will get hard again, maybe start coming apart. (This is just what I've heard, mind you.) So, I kept checking it. I let it cook until it seemed to be about the consistancy I wanted, like al dente with pasta: not too squishy but with a firm texture (look at me with my fancy cooking jargon!).

Then I let it cook some more because my sauce wasn't thickening. Oh noes!

I didn't want to sacrifice the texture of the rice cake for the thick sauce, so I stopped it and set it aside to hope the cooling would make the sauce thicker. Nope... not really. Oh well. Now I know: less water! So, out of the pot it wasn't quite as red looking. In fact, it looked downright sad sitting in my little brown 70's wannabe bowl.



Don't worry. It was still plenty flavorful. And by flavorful, I mean SPICY as all get out! Oh, so good!



I'll have to keep practicing. Next time, I will use less water, add some cabbage and carrots and garnish it with some green onions. Yum!