Commercial fish cakes are made of starch, flour, sugar, and ground fish, squid, or shrimp, formed into shapes, fried or steamed and then sold frozen. The best quality fish cakes have a high fish content. Some brands contain MSG, so always check the ingredients on the back of the package to see what you’re getting.

You can buy packs of assorted cakes that have a variety of shapes, textures, and fish content in one convenient package (jonghapeomuk 종합어묵), which are great for fish cake soup.

Some people call these “fish loaves” or “fish sausages,” and in Japan they call them kamaboko. Koreans sometimes call them odeng (오뎅) which is a loan word from the Japanese oden (おでん).  In China they call the round ones “fish balls.”

If using packaged fish cakes, store what you don’t use in a zipperlock plastic bag in the freezer for up to 3 months. Some of the larger Korean grocery stores sell fish cakes freshly fried, and you can also make fish cakes at home.


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Recipes that use fish cakes (eomuk):

8 Comments:

  1. 1sweet2t& has 1 comment

    Hi Maangchi! My name is Dianne and i really wanted to try to make my own fish cakes. I found a recipe to make homemade fish cakes but I would like to know if you think this recipe might good.

    – Ingredients for 4 portions of Eomuk –

    White-flesh Fish(frozen pollack, or pollack, or white croakers(corbina), etc) 300g, a squid, (potato) starch(2/3 cup), salt, sugar, cooking wine, cooking oil for frying it

    – Recipe –

    1. Wash white croakers and squids clean, be dry them, cut them off properly, and grind them in a blender.

    2. Put them into the big bowl and knead them mixing with starch, salt, sugar, cooking wine, etc.

    3. Spoon the kneaded pastes by ones(a spoonful) into 175~180℃ oil until they

    • iChayBYG US joined 8/12 & has 2 comments

      I’ve been looking for a recipe to make these! I can’t find these in the Phoenix area so I decided to make them but couldn’t find the recipe :) What do you mean when you say you cut them off properly? And how much salt, sugar, cooking wine, and starch does it call for?

  2. krysanthe philippines joined 11/11 & has 1 comment

    I bought fish cakes in skewers. can i use it in the recipe uhmook bukkeum?

  3. empresslilo28 Los Angeles joined 2/10 & has 3 comments

    i bought some pre-fried fish cakes of the same brand cause they looked good but i have no idea how to cook them, they are of the same brand as in the one in the pic but the fish cakes are in rows with a stick(skewer) in the middle, what can i do with them, sorry for long question,lol

  4. kira joined 7/10 & has 5 comments

    Hi, Maangchi! Do you ever cook with the thin, flat fish cakes? Where can I find those? Are they refrigerated, frozen, or dried?

    Thank you!!!

  5. ..yum yum!!..

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