- Korean
Tteokbokki are irresistibly chewy rice cakes, glazed with a sweet-spicy sauce.
By
Chichi Wang
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Chichi Wang
Chichi Wang wrote a variety of columns for Serious Eats including The Butcher's Cuts, in addition to other stories. Born in Shanghai and raised in New Mexico, Chichi took her degree in philosophy but decided that writing about food would be more fun than writing about Plato.
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Updated February 21, 2024
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Why It Works
- Glutinous rice cakes are chewy and slightly bouncy. Glazed with a combination of chile paste, sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar, they take on a ton of flavor.
- The rice cakes can be pan-fried or broiled for a crispy exterior and soft, gooey interior.
If you go into any Korean supermarket, you'll find several staples sold in an overwhelming array: kimchi, anchovies, pickled garlic, and a variety of rice cakes that are not available at Chinese or Japanese stores. At a Chinese store, on the other hand, you might find a few packages of pre-sliced rice cakes (nian gao, in Chinese) for use in stir-fry dishes, but even a small Korean supermarket will carry an impressive range of rice cakes (tteok, in Korean).
What is a rice cake?Glutinous rice is pounded to a gluey, sticky mass, which is then formed into a variety of different shapes and sizes. Shape-wise, there are chubby and skinny, tall and short, round and oblong. Color-wise, they can be pale (made with white glutinous flour) or tan (made with brown rice). You'll find freshly cooked rice cakes, most frequently in cylindrical form, sold at some stores, though all Korean markets will carry refrigerated, pre-packaged rice cakes that must be boiled before use.
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Though all rice cakes taste like pounded rice (even the ones made with brown rice vary little in their taste),the specific shape dramatically affects the texture.Thin slices are significantly less chewy than large, cylindrical rice cakes that are genuinely toothsome in the degree of their chewiness.
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Here is one instance where there's truly no "better" shape—each is well-suited to its purpose. A thin rice cake quickly soaks in flavor and is good for a stir-fried dish with slices of meat or vegetables. A thicker, rounder rice cake can be toasted in a cast iron pan or even charred over a grill, and still stays pleasantly chewy and soft in the center.
In Korean cooking, rice cakes are a mainstay of kimchi stews, for which almost any shape and size of rice cake will flourish.Sliced rice cakes need significantly less time to cook than the more thickly shaped sticks,but those chubby cylinders of pounded rice, you should know, char wonderfully when lined at the bottom of a clay pot.
Asking the question,what should I cook along with the rice cake?may half-miss the point—it's like asking an Italian what garnishes should accompany a freshly made plate of pasta. The pasta, valued for its specific textural qualities, is the primary draw of the dish, just like the rice cake is the main attraction. (This is not to say, of course, that a rice cake wouldn't make a superb filler for just about any stew you're contemplating.)
Koreans relish the chewy texture of the rice cake with very little garnish and side ingredients.The classic preparation oftteokbokkiis to boil the cylindrically shaped cakes andeat them coated in a red sauce of chile paste, fermented bean paste, soy sauce, and sugar, topped liberally with sesame seeds.You can follow the traditional route and boil your rice cakes in water or you can pan-fry them with a little bit of oil in a skillet. Or, char the cakes under the broiler until the surface is crackly and the inside is gooey and warm. The bibim sauce—a tasty balance of sweet, savory, and spicy—is a wonderful dressing for the chewy cakes.
Of course, once you're hooked on the texture, you'll find all kinds of ways to incorporate the cakes into your diet. In the mornings I've been known to dip broiled rice cakes in a mixture of peanut and honey with my coffee; in the evenings, I might fry one or two in bacon fat or olive oil to accompany my meat and vegetables.
November 2010
Recipe Details
Tteokbokki (Korean Rice Cakes)
Prep5 mins
Cook25 mins
Active10 to 20 mins
Total30 mins
Serves4 servings
Ingredients
6 to 8 fresh long rice cake sticks, or 20 smaller rice cake sticks
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
For the Sauce:
3 tablespoons Korean chile pepper paste (gochujang)
3 to 4 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
Roasted sesame seeds, to garnish
Directions
If using fresh rice cake sticks, proceed with step 2. If using refrigerated rice cake sticks, boil according to instructions on package, about 5 to 10 minutes, until soft.
Heat cast iron skillet over high heat. Add vegetable oil and pan-fry rice cake sticks for 3 to 4 minutes per side, until lightly brown. Alternatively, toss rice cake sticks with oil in a medium bowl and broil for 3 minutes.
Mix ingredients for sauce together. In a mixing bowl, coat browned rice cake sticks in sauce and top with sesame seeds. Serve hot or at room temperature.
Special Equipment
Cast iron skillet
Notes
If you have extra rice cakes, you can freeze them. The smaller, thinner varieties can be tossed directly into the soup pot from the freezer, making them a quick addition to your late night kimchi soups.
| Nutrition Facts (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 262 | Calories |
| 8g | Fat |
| 43g | Carbs |
| 5g | Protein |
Show Full Nutrition Label
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| Nutrition Facts | |
|---|---|
| Servings: 4 | |
| Amount per serving | |
| Calories | 262 |
| % Daily Value* | |
| Total Fat 8g | 11% |
| Saturated Fat 1g | 4% |
| Cholesterol 0mg | 0% |
| Sodium 1610mg | 70% |
| Total Carbohydrate 43g | 15% |
| Dietary Fiber 2g | 7% |
| Total Sugars 9g | |
| Protein 5g | |
| Vitamin C 2mg | 11% |
| Calcium 18mg | 1% |
| Iron 1mg | 5% |
| Potassium 176mg | 4% |
| *The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice. | |
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)
