Spicy Rice Cakes

Everytime I think about Korean food, it's not kimchi that comes into the mind first; although I do so adore kimchi. It's tubokki or spicy rice cakes that will make drool.

How do I enjoy them?

Three ways.

1. Easiest

Head to the nearest or your favourite Korean restaurant and order some. My favourite place happens to be Ko Hyang at Gardens Mall. Eye-tearingly spicy tubokki served there. Quite affordably priced too.

2. Almost instant cooking

By buying a ready made paste. Chuck in the garaetuk (those cylindrical shaped rice cakes) in a pan, then chuck in the sauce and whatever ingredients you fancy or follow whatever were put inside at your favourite Korean place.

3. Cooking from (almost) scratch

Making it is relatively simple. But if you don't cook Korean food that much, I guess the instant paste would be better and more economical.

For me, apart from kimchi, there's always a tub of gochujang (and doenjang) in the fridge. Have gochujang, you can cook anything that is in semblance of Korean food, that's how I feel! hahaha

To make tubokki, you need :

Garaetuk (cylindrical shaped rice cakes)

Onion - cut into 4 or 6. Well, big slices. I like onions so I tend to put one big sliced onions

Some veges - carrots, spring onion and cabbages for me

Fish cakes

Garlic (you seriously are not cooking Korean food if you don't have garlic in it) ;p

Sugar (though I favour honey)

and of course, sesame seed

Cooking them is easy. Stir-fry onions and veges for a while. Put gochujang in a pan/pot, water and let it boil then add sugar(or honey) to taste. Chuck your already soft garaetuk and veges into the pan and let it mix and simmer for a while. Serve hot.

Disclaimer : if you do intend to cook them, I suggest you look up at the recipe elsewhere and not refer to mine. I'm from the "let's chuck everything" and see how it turns out kinda cooking school. Pretty much cooking to get similar taste to what I've eaten before rather than following a specific recipe, word by word.

Zaini pretty much suffers when I start dabbling into new things to cook! Poor guy. ^^! That's why he is wary when I wanted to cook new things. LOL