Sunday, June 3, 2007

Spicy Red Stiry Fry with Rice Cakes (고추장볶음떡)

This is a simple stir fry recipe, with a Korean slant, that I made up one night. It uses ddeok (떡) which is a Korean rice cake. The ddeok is made by smashing rice into a flour-like powder, then forming this substance that tastes like rice but with an awesome chewy consistency. I suggest picking some up at a Korean market; they're pretty cheap and great to cook with. The other necessary thing is gochujang - a spicy pepper paste that is also Korean.Prepare:
-Chop up any vegetables you like for a stir fry (this time, I used okra, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, chili pepper, carrot, Buk Choy, chives)
-Crush 1-3 cloves of garlic (duh)
-Prepare the ddeok: make sure it's room temperature or a bit colder and chopped up so that length-wise it's bite-size. You don't have to break it apart width-wise as they will fall apart while cooking-Get sauces ready: definitely gochujang, some chili garlic sauce, some olive oil, stock powder, oyster sauce, sesame oil, etc.
Cook:
-Heat up your wok, medium-high
-When it's hot, dump in some olive oil and the garlic
-Chuck in the veggies and ddeok (except for greener vegetables, like leaves of Buk Choy, chives, cilantro, or green onion)
-After a couple minutes, mix in your sauces: 2 whopping tablespoons of gochujang will be good
-Cook for about 7 more minutes till stuff starts looking done: ddeok should be soft, the veggies should look good. Everything should have an awesome redness about it. Mix in greens.-Once it's done, taste it. Mine was a bit salty and so I added about 1 tbsp of sugar and 1 tsp of honey and mixed it in. That sweetness made it great, complimenting the spice perfectly.

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