s h i n s h i n e

Simple Rice Pasta in Soy Sauce (간장 떡볶이)

Today I have a simple version of the simple soy sauce (간장 - gan jang) rice cake noodles (떡볶이 - ddeok bok gi) - full in flavor, simple to make, and fast to eat.

For those who are interested, let me start with descriptions of some popular dishes made with this type of long, thin rice cakes.  There are myriads of ddeokbokgi variations, but here are the basics.

Oh, and the most confusing part about ddeokbokgi is its English spelling - ddukbokki, ddukbokgi, tteokbokgi, toppoki all refer to the same dish.  I've decided to go with ddeok-bok-gi which sounds closest to how it's written in Korean.

* Ddeokbokgi (떡볶이) - When you simply say 'ddeokbokgi,' most people will think of the spicy, simple, street food-kind, the ones you eat standing up under a tent on the busy streets of Korea.  Often it's just long strands of rice cakes doused in spicy sauce, but you may see a few pieces of flat, sheet-like fish cakes and overcooked scallion strips, which are all part of its charm.  

 
<I can only find this kind of ddeokbokgi pictures from my recent trip to Korea. Pretty obvious where my preference lies.>

* Ddeokbokgi a la minute (즉석 떡볶이 - jeuk seok ddeok bok gi) - Like a stew, you will get a sizeable pot with a portable gas burner on your table, which means this is usually served at a casual, sit-down snack bar.  And it will be for two or more people.  In addition to long strands of rice cakes, fish cakes, cabbage slices, scallions, dumplings, glass noodles or ramyeon noodles with a hearty dose of red paste, which is a mix of gochujang (고추장 - red pepper paste), gochu garu (고추가루 - red pepper flakes), garlic, sugar, etc.  

* Ddeokbokgi in soy sauce (간장 떡볶이 - gan jang ddeok bok gi) - What I'm making today on this post.  Consider it a dish of rice pasta with assorted vegetables.  This is for those who don't want the spicy version.  In the old days, the dish came about as a way to utilize the fresh rice cakes from the New Year's Day that have gone too hard.  These days, it has become a home snack for kids, something that's rarely found outside of home kitchens in Korea.  And since this is a home dish, ultimately, the ingredients are whatever mom decides to put in there along with the rice cakes.

* Royal court ddeokbokgi (궁중 떡볶이 - gung jung ddeok bok gi) - The name gets thrown around a lot, and the line between the simple ddeokbokgi in soy sauce and royal court ddeokbokgi often gets blurry.  A proper gungjung ddeokbokgi is made with rice cakes from the best rice, along with other ingredients that were not commonly used in the old days, such as strips of beef, fresh chestnuts, dried jujube and pine nut flakes.

* Ddeokbokgi in skewers (떡꼬치 - ddeok ggo chi) - this one leaves the ddeokbokgi 'in sauce'-kind, but it's also very popular I thought I'd mention it.  It doesn't have to be in skewers, but the idea is fried rice cakes brushed with spicy sauce of gochujang, ganjang, sugar and ketchup. 

To make 1 main or 2 snack portion ganjang ddeokbokgi)

8 long strands (~6 inches) of rice cakes, made with white or brown rice, about 0.6 lb.

4 t soy sauce
4 t plus 1/4 C water
1 t honey
1 clove garlic, peeled & grated
1/4 t ginger, peeled & grated
fresh ground pepper

1 t vegetable oil
1/4 onion, peeled & sliced
1 small carrot, peeled & sliced
2 stems scallions, trimmed & cut to 2' length
a pinch salt
Optional vegetables) fresh shitake mushrooms (표고 버섯 - pyo go beo seot), bell pepper, sesame leaves

1-2 t sesame oil

toasted sesame seeds for garnish 

If you bought the fresh kind, there is no need to soak rice cakes.  If rice cakes are very hard or frozen, soak rice cakes in cold water.  If you're in a hurry, you can dip them in boiling water then rinse in cold water (But this creates another pot to wash, so I don't think you're saving much time, just saying).  I prefer soaking rice cakes in cold water, which helps rice cakes loosen up without releasing too much starch before cooking.  Soak for about 10-20 minutes, just until you can tear apart each strand of rice cake and cut in half.  Rice cakes don't need to be completely soft.   

While the rice cakes are soaking, make the sauce.  Mix soy sauce, 4 teaspoons of water, honey, grated garlic, grated ginger and freshly ground black pepper.  Set aside.

Cut rice cakes per your preference.  The picture above shows the rice cakes cut in half, horizontally.  I like it this way because it looks and feels like fat pasta noodles.  But feel free to cut in 2 or 3 equal lengths, or not bother to cut at all.

Now for the most important step of this recipe, marinate rice cakes in the sauce for 10 - 20 minutes. This is how you can get well-seasoned rice cakes with such short cooking time.  For the long strands, I find the bread mold convenient for the job.  Plastic bags, as well as regular bowls, will be fine for this.

In the meantime, prepare vegetables.  I consider onion, carrot and scallion essential for this home ddeokbokgi dish to add depth of flavor and natural sweetness.  Feel free to add other vegetables - I had fresh shitake mushrooms (2) and half of a red bell pepper.  

Start cooking by heating a sauté pan over moderate heat.  Add vegetable oil when the pan is warm, then add onion, carrot, mushrooms and bell pepper.  Sprinkle a pinch of salt and sauté just until onion slices start turning transluscent.  

Add rice cakes to the pan, including the marinade sauce, plus 1/4 C of water.

Stir to mix well then cover with a lid.  After a couple of minutes (so don't leave the kitchen) when it comes to a boil, uncover and stir so that rice cakes don't stick to the bottom.  When the rice cakes turn soft, add scallions and give another stir.

Turn off the heat.  Add 1 - 2 teaspoons of sesame oil to your taste and mix well.

Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds on top.  Serve hot. 

 

TIPS!
Buy fresh-made rice cakes.  If you have access to Korean grocery stores in the U.S., it'll be pretty easy to find this.  Usually the rice cakes for ddeokbokgi are found in vacuumed plastic bags in the freezer section.  The fresh-made ones are often displayed with other rice cakes (the sweet, dessert kind).  I like the fresh ones for several reasons.  They hold up better in cooking even if you freeze them first and use them later, whereas some from the freezer section tend to burst into the sauce in a messy way.

Sometimes there are fresh rice cakes made with brown rice, unlike the frozen kind which only has white rice cakes (as far as I've seen).  Unlike whole wheat pasta, which I still can't force myself to pick up because the taste is so different (as in not good) from regular pasta, taste difference between white rice cake and brown rice cake is pretty miniscule.  

Also the fresh rice cakes tend to be longer, which gives you more freedom of cutting them the way you want. The way I like is to cut each strand in half, horizontally, which makes them look and feel more like fat pasta noodles.

If you buy fresh rice cakes for ddeobokgi, portion them into 1~2 servings each, wrap each portion in plastic and keep them in the freezer.

 

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Danmuji (단무지 - Sweet Radish Pickle)
Delicious Seoul Scenes
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KOREAN WORDS
후식 (hu sik) - dessert
간식 (gan sik) - snack

Kimbap Bibimbap?!

 

Any leftover ingredients from making kiddie kimbap (꼬마 김밥)?

Just make a bowl of bibimbap out of it.  I was done with danmuji (sweet radish pickle) and scallions.  No problem.  I added sautéed asparagus and a poached egg.  Make sure you add some laver (김 - gim, a.k.a. nori) flakes.  I just used the leftover Dijon mustard & honey sauce, but a dollop of gochujang would add a nice kick to it.

Happy Lunch!

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Kiddie Kimbap (꼬마 김밥)
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KOREAN WORDS
소금    (so geum)    salt
참기름 (cham gi reum)    sesame oil

Kiddie Kimbap (꼬마 김밥)

By far the most popular picnic menu item in Korea is kimbap, rice seasoned with nutty sesame oil then wrapped in laver (김 - gim/kim) with assorted ingredients that usually include danmuji (단무지 - Sweet Radish Pickle), carrots, and egg, but in the end, only limited by your imagination.  

Even without an excuse of a picnic, kimbap of all sizes and kinds are everywhere in Korea, it so gives off the air of deceivingly simple dish.  Simple in eating for sure, but, like the illusive simplicity of making bibimbap, making kimbap from scratch is not a task to be taken on at the last minute.  

For those who want to try a simpler-to-make (within reason) and cuter-in-looks (yes, definitely) version of this Korean picnic favorite, I suggest this kiddie kimbap called ggoma gimbap (꼬마김밥) that has a nickname of mayak gimbap (마약 김밥).  Mayak means drugs in Korean, implying that it's so addictive that you can't stop reaching for it.  You can easily find this skinny kimbap sold in street carts and markets such as Gwangjang Market (광장 시장) in Korea, but lacking that option, you can also make it at home.  They are so cute and small, you won't even realize how much you're eating until it's all gone.  

To make about 24 rolls (2~3 portions) of kiddie kimbap - 

2 C boiled short grain rice a.k.a. sushi rice*
2 C mix of boiled short grain rice and black rice* 

4 T toasted sesame oil
4 T rice vinegar
4 T sesame seeds, toasted and coarsely ground
1 t salt 

5 stems scallions, cut to 2 inch length and julienned
1 C shredded carrots (2~3 thin carrots)
24 thin sticks of danmuji, available at Korean grocery stores or make your own (see below for link)

vegetable oil, salt and pepper to sauté vegetables 

6 sheets of laver (김 - gim/kim), cut to 4 equal squares available as sushi nori in grocery stores 

For dipping sauce, mix together 2 T Dijon mustard and 1 T honey 

*Cooking short-grain rice on a stovetop
This deserves a separate post, but here is a quick rundown if anyone wants to start from scratch.  Soak 1/4C black rice in cold water (2x the volume of rice) for an hour or longer.  Soak 1 3/4C white short grain rice (2x the volume of rice) in cold water for 30 minutes to an hour, until rice grains turn opaque.  

Grease two pots, each with a size that can hold about 2.5C of rice, by drizzling a few drops of vegetable oil and wiping with papertowel.  Although not necessary, greasing the pots will help you with easier cleaning after you take out the cooked rice.  Mix 3/4C of white rice with black rice along with soaked water and add to a pot.  Leave water only about to 1/4 inch above the surface of rice and discard the rest of water.  Put the rest of white rice (1C) in a separate pot, again with water only up to 1/4 inch above the surface of the rice.  

Cook for 30 minutes over low heat, covered.  Turn off the heat, let them rest for 10 minutes, covered.  Transfer to two separate, big mixing bowls and fluff up the rice with a rice paddle or a wet wooden spoon.    

No black rice?  No problem.  Just start with 2C of short grain rice and one bigger pot to cook. 

Or cook in rice cooker as directed.  Or find prepackaged, microwaveable rice from Korean grocery stores.  Don't get the fluffy-kind that lacks the necessary sticky starch to make kimbap.  

If you have cooked rice ready to go, let's start from here.

Put white rice and black rice in separate mixing bowls.  Mix each rice with 2T toasted sesame oil, 2T rice vinegar, 2T sesame seeds and 1/2t salt.  Let it rest and cool to room temperature.  If the rice is still hot, you need to let the steam out, so there is no need to cover.  If it's about lukewarm, cover with plastic so rice won't dry out.

Sauté julienned scallions on a hot pan drizzled with a few drops of vegetable oil.  Add a pinch of salt and blackpepper.  Remove from heat.

Repeat sautéing, now with shredded carrots.

Have all the ingredients lined up like below and start rolling kiddie kimbap!

When they are all rolled up, serve with honey-mustard sauce (Dijon mustard and honey mixed together).

  

TIPS!
These will come in handy and work for these mini rolls as well as regular-sized kimbap rolls. 

* Have a small bowl of water ready, so that you can dip your fingers as necessary.  Sesame oil in rice helps, but your fingers will get sticky quite quickly.  Wetting your fingers along the way make the job so much easier.  Just make sure you have family and friends who don't mind your bare, clean hands making these treats.

* If you want to enjoy the full potential of sesame seeds, toast then coarsely pound them to help release their nuttly oil right before use.  You can use mortar and pestle, or put the toasted, cooled sesame seeds in a pastic bag and press with a rolling pin. 

* Once you roll kimbap, let them rest with the flap side down for a few minutes.  Without glueing the laver flap with water or extra rice, these rolls will gel as the moisture from rice reaches all corners of laver.

* These are two-bite rolls (one-bite for some) that do not require cutting.  If you decide to cut, use a sharp knife and wet it as necessary along the way.

* The basic ingredients for kiddie kimbap are carrot and radish pickle, with hams and/or sautéed spinach added in fancier version.  Feel free to adjust ingredients based on your preference and what's in your refrigerator, but I suggest that you work with only 2 or 3 ingredients that are cut very thin and flat except danmuji sticks that should be cut to the length of laver.

* This recipe will yield the amount specified.  However, I suggest you make more to get leftover rice and leftover ingredients, easily stored in the refrigerator for a couple of days.  What to do?  Come back later this week for what else you can make with the leftover kimbap ingredients...^_^ 

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Kimbap Bibimbap?!

KOREAN WORDS
손  (son)  hand
발  (bal)  foot 

Jujube Tea (대추차 - dae chu cha)

I brought a bag of dried daechu (대추 - a.k.a., jujube, red date, Chinese date, Korean date) from Korea.  Daechu can be eaten fresh with the skin on (think a baby version of lady apple) but it is more widely used after drying.  It's one of those Korean ingredients that work well in savory dishes as well as in traditional sweets. Daechu is used in so many Korean dishes, including Samgyetang (삼계탕 - chicken soup with ginseng), yakshik (약식 - glutinous rice dessert mixed with nuts and daechu) and various sweet rice cakes.  As many of traditional Korean ingredients do, daechu also comes with its own medicinal qualities such as aiding digestion and calming your nerves.  For me, the best way to appreciate the slighty earthy and mostly sweet quality of daechu is daechu cha, tea made with only water and daechu.   

Since there are only two ingredients used for this tea, the quality of daechu becomes important.  In my long years of consuming daechu, I've found that bigger ones, more commonly found in Korean grocery stores in the U.S., tend to be not as sweet, so you may have to add sugar or honey to compensate for the natural sweetness found in the small, tight, wrinkly ones that are more common in Korea.  You'll appreciate the sweet ones even before tasting the tea, when it comes to a boil and its intoxicating sweet aroma fills up the kitchen.  Big or small, you will likely find them in packages in Korean grocery stores and Asian stores.  

I've seen recommendations from Korean daechu farms to make tea by simmering over low heat for 7-8 hours for best flavor.  If you want to try it that way, a slow cooker would be a good thing to have.  Let it go for a few hours (to 7-8 hours) over low heat until daechu get all really plump.  Then follow the rest of the steps below (pop and strain).  No need to reheat unless you want to reduce it and get the tea to thicken.

To make 8~ 10 cups of daechu cha)

3 C dried daechu (대추), a.k.a. jujube, red dates, Chinese dates, Korean dates
   plus 2-3 for garnish
16 C water 
Optional) fresh, peeled and sliced ginger about the size of your thumb and/or a cinamon stick for flavoring; honey or sugar for added sweetness

Over time, I've come up with a highly unscientific ratio of daechu to water to a big pot.  Find the biggest pot at home, fill it up with water to about 80% height of the pot, and put enough daechu to cover the surface of the water.  So that's how I got to 3 cups daechu to 16 cups water this time.  You're welcome to use my 'recipe' here, but no need to panic if you come just short of daechu or water amount specified above.  

Wash

Boil

Pop

Strain

Garnish

Wash daechu in cold water.  Grab a fistful of daechu and rub against one another to get rid of any dirt in the wrinkles of daechu.  Repeat with the rest of daechu.  Rinse.  Discard water.

Add daechu and 16 cups of new water in a pot.  Bring it up to a boil over high heat.  Once it's boiling, turn down heat to moderate and let it simmer, slightly covered.  If you are adding ginger and/or cinnamon, add them in the pot now.

* From what I've found, there is no need to worry about white powder bubbling up or coating daechu as you boil them.  Feel free to skim off the white bubbles that rise to the top, but it goes away as it cools.  It's part of natural ingredient in daechu - some say saponin, others say sugar, or I'm guessing both because saponin is composed of sugars.  I couldn't find an authoritive opinion on this, but it's supposed to be natural and more of it is found in organic, sweeter daechu.  If you can point me to a definitive answer, please let me know so that I can update this part.

After about an hour, most daechu should be plump (with a few at least less wrinkly) from sitting in hot water.  Turn off the heat.  With an wooden spoon, press daechu gently against the side of the pot and pop the flesh out.  Simmer for another 30 minutes.  

Turn off the heat.  With a strainer, scoop out a batch of popped daechu.  With an wooden spoon, stir and gently press to separate daechu skin and seeds from flesh while keeping the strainer half submerged in daechu water in the pot.  Discard the daechu skin and seeds remaining in the strainer.  Repeat with the rest of daechu in the pot.  If you started with ginger and/or cinnamon stick, discard those at this point.

From here, it's up to you if you want to further reduce the tea to make it thicker, if you want to add sugar or honey for extra sweetness.  Keep in mind that you'll taste sweetness better after it cools down.  

For daechu garnish, cut around a daechu to take out the seed.  roll the daechu tightly and slice it with a sharp knife.   

Once it's cooled to room temperature, store tea in an air-tight container and keep it refrigerated.

Serve hot or chilled.

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KOREAN WORDS
계피    (gye pi)            cinnamon
생강    (saeng gang)    ginger     
생각    (saeng gak)      thought(s)

Yeonriji (연리지), Two Trees As One

I found this in the Secret Garden (후원 - hu won) behind Changdeok Palace (창덕궁) of Seoul, back in February.

Yeon-ri-ji (연리지) is the Korean word for two trees intertwined as one. 

This photo makes me smile.  
I hope it makes you smile today.