For this street snack, rice cakes are cooked in a spicy sauce made from red pepper paste and anchovy stock. As it simmers, the sauce turns creamy and the rice cakes soften and become pleasantly chewy. The fish cakes are optional, but they make the broth more savory and add another texture to the dish. Rice cakes are sold frozen or refrigerated in Korean grocery stores. If you buy them frozen, you’ll need to thaw them at room temperature, then separate them, soak them in cold water for 30 minutes to soften them, and drain. Without this presoak, they will remain hard no matter how long you cook them. Freshly made rice cakes don’t need soaking. If you don’t have time to make anchovy stock, you can replace it with canned low-sodium chicken broth.
SERVES: 2 or 3
INGREDIENTS:
- ⅓ cup Korean hot pepper paste (gochujang)
- 1 tablespoon Korean hot pepper flakes (gochu-garu)
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 4 cups water
- 7 large dried anchovies (mareun-myeolchi), heads and guts removed
- 1 (6-x-8-inch) piece dried kelp (dasima; optional)
- 1 pound cylinder-shaped rice cakes (tteokguk-yong-tteok), soaked and drained if frozen (see headnote)
- 3 scallions, cut into 3-inch pieces
- 4 ounces fish cakes (eomuk), cut into bite-size pieces (optional)
- 2 large hard-boiled eggs, shelled and left whole (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Combine the hot pepper paste, hot pepper flakes, and sugar in a small bowl.
- Pour the water into a large skillet and add the dried anchovies and dried kelp, if using. Boil over medium-high heat until reduced to about 2½ cups, about 15 minutes. Strain the stock into a bowl; discard the solids.
- Return the stock to the skillet and reheat over medium heat. Add the hot pepper paste mixture, rice cakes, scallions, and fish cakes and hard-boiled eggs, if using. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the stock bubbles and turns thick and creamy and the rice cakes are soft but still chewy, 10 to 13 minutes.
- Transfer to a serving plate and serve.
