Hot and spicy rice cake

Tteokbokki 떡볶이

When I lived in Korea I learned the secret to making good tteokbokki from a famous place in a market. It was run by an old lady who could always be found stirring her tteokbokki. People were lined up to buy it.

I saw she used dried anchovies in her stock, and that ingredient made a huge difference in the flavor.

I once ran out of dried anchovies and made tteokbokki without it. It didn’t taste at all like what I was expecting. So don’t forget to always make a good stock with dried anchovies when you make this!

Ingredients

1 pound of cylinder shaped rice cake, bought or homemade. (Use a little more if you’re not adding hard boiled eggs and fish cakes)
4 cups of water
7 large size dried anchovies, with heads and intestines removed
6 x 8 inch dried kelp
⅓ cup hot pepper paste
1 tablespoon hot pepper flakes
1 tablespoon sugar
3 green onions, cut into 3 inch long pieces
2 hard boiled eggs, shelled (optional)
½ pound fish cakes (optional)

Directions

Add the water, dried anchovies, and dried kelp to a shallow pot or pan.
Boil for 15 minutes over medium high heat without the lid.
Combine hot pepper paste, hot pepper flakes, and sugar in a small bowl. Remove the anchovies and kelp from the pot and add the rice cake, the mixture in the bowl, the green onion, and the optional fish cakes and hard boiled eggs. The stock will be about 2 ½ cups.
Stir gently with a wooden spoon when it starts to boil. Keep stirring until the rice cake turns soft and the sauce thickens and looks shiny, which should take about 10 -15 minutes. If the rice cake is not soft enough, add more water and continue stirring until soften. When you use freshly made rice cake, it takes shorter time. If you use frozen rice cake, thaw it out and soak in cold water to soften it before cooking.
Remove from the heat and serve hot.

Posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 8:56 pm. Last updated on May 4, 2019.
Tagged: cylinder shaped rice cake, ddeokbokki recipe, ddukbokki, 떡볶이 조리법, korean food, Korean recipes, korean snack, Korean spicy rice cake, Korean street snack, Maangchi recipes, spicy ricecake, tteokbokki, tteokbokki recipe

854 Comments:

Anonymous& has 2,255 comments
Posted March 23rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm | Log in to reply.

hi maangchi,

thanks for all the recipe and especially the video how to make.it helped me a lot bec i’m not a good cook and it is very difficult without someone showing it.
AND is it possible to make the rice cake(for ddukbokkie) by myself bec it is hard to find that.i have bought this flour called 가루찹쌀 but i can’t read it how to make.
thanks
Anonymous& has 2,255 comments
Posted March 15th, 2008 at 10:04 am | Log in to reply.

Hi maangchi,i just finish made the kimchi,i m not sure how the taste yet. btw how should i keep the kimchi paste if i have made to much of the paste for the kimchi,the size of the cup i use is abt (height) 10 cm, so as a result extra paste for two cabbage.can i just keep it in fridge and continue tomorrow?besides,based on your video,1/2 cup of sweet rice flour require 1 cup of fish taste, i just follow the quantity but using my cup to measure it, is it ok with this ?
Maangchi New York City joined 8/08 & has 11,850 comments
Posted March 14th, 2008 at 8:35 pm | Log in to reply.

Welcome, G!
It’s wonderful! You can cook your own Korean food now. Let me know how it goes.
Anonymous& has 2,255 comments
Posted March 14th, 2008 at 1:43 pm | Log in to reply.

Hi Maangchi,
I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your site and videos! I’ve been wanting to learn how to make some Korean staples (such as soon dubu chigae and ddukbookie, for starters) for a very long time! And, since I can’t ask my mother to make everything I want to learn how to make, this is the best solution!

I just wish I could get Korean ingredients easily…I live in a part of France that’s not very racially diverse…but I still love it :)

Thanks again!
-G.
Maangchi New York City joined 8/08 & has 11,850 comments
Posted February 27th, 2008 at 8:22 pm | Log in to reply.

Jo Rose,
Please send me the picture of the dish that your friend took. I would like to see it. : )
jo*rose& has 2,255 comments
Posted February 27th, 2008 at 12:49 am | Log in to reply.

Hi Maangchi!

I didn’t know it’s rice cake until now. :) I ate them once in a little eatery on the way back to Seoul from a pottery shopping with my Aunt. I can still remember it was raining a bit then so it was nice to hear you say that it’s good to eat it when it’s raining. :)

Oh, you know what, I tried cooking the bibimbap but I didn’t have the kosari available. It still tasted good though. We also had to cook a bit of the garlic since we know it will taste a bit spicy if we don’t. My housemate took pictures of it.

I’m going to try cooking another dish soon since my mouth gets watery every time I watch the podcasts.

Thanks for your show!

Best Regards,
Jo Rose
Lillian& has 2,255 comments
Posted February 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pm | Log in to reply.

I made these and they were great! So simple and easy for a light snack or lunch. Are these ever served with fish or meat to make them more of a meal?

Thanks for the handy new recipe!
Maangchi New York City joined 8/08 & has 11,850 comments
Posted February 19th, 2008 at 5:07 pm | Log in to reply.

Thank you very much for your update!
Anonymous& has 2,255 comments
Posted February 19th, 2008 at 9:48 am | Log in to reply.

hi maangchi! i tried your recipe, it was good! thanks a lot! :)
Maangchi New York City joined 8/08 & has 11,850 comments
Posted November 26th, 2007 at 9:08 pm | Log in to reply.

Hi,goblinlord,
It’s a good question! Yes, you can cook Ddeuk and fish cake together when you make dduk bokkie. I would suggest adding fish cake with dduk at the same time.
Wow, songpyun! I envy you now because you seem to taste the best songpyun in your friend’s house.
The sweet stuff in the songpyun could be made with sesame seeds powder and sugar, or beans with sugar. We usually use brown sugar for it.
Thank you!
Goblinlord& has 2,255 comments
Posted November 26th, 2007 at 2:29 pm | Log in to reply.

Hi Maangchi ^-^,
My best friend in Korea who was a KATUSA in the Korean military made me ddukbokkie once. I seem to remember him making it with fish cakes in it. Do you know if you would put them in early with the ddok or latter after it is almost finished?

Also, I was wondering what exactly is the sweet stuff in Seongpyun? I went to spend Chu’sok with my friends family (the same one mentioned above) and they had Seongpyun there. It had to be the best rice cake treat I had ever had.
Maangchi New York City joined 8/08 & has 11,850 comments
Posted November 10th, 2007 at 7:20 am | Log in to reply.

pilseung,
1 TBS of dried anchovy powder will be enough.
PilSeung& has 2,255 comments
Posted November 9th, 2007 at 11:34 pm | Log in to reply.

Hello maangchi,
is it okay to make it with powdered myeol chi? if so how much should i put?
Maangchi New York City joined 8/08 & has 11,850 comments
Posted September 13th, 2007 at 10:37 pm | Log in to reply.

Hi,Lillian,
good to hear from you again.
If you take ddukbokkie to your party, it will be very popular to koreans.
Thanks,
Lillian& has 2,255 comments
Posted September 13th, 2007 at 9:09 pm | Log in to reply.

Oooh, I think I had these at a potluck! There were a number of Koreans there, and so much food I couldn’t keep track of who brought what. The dukbokkie were very popular–I think made with mussels in a slightly spicy sauce. I’ll have to try this one when I’m back near a Korean grocery store (I’ll be moving in December). Thanks again Maangchi, and thanks for the blog comments!

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Hot and spicy rice cake
Korean name: 떡볶이
Romanized: Tteokbokki
Also Romanized as: ddukbokkie, topokki, ddeokbokki, dduk bok ki, dduk bok kie, dduk bok kie, dduk bok kee, dduk bok ki, ddukbokki

Categories: rice cake, snack, spicy
Made with: dried anchovies, dried kelp, eggs, fish cakes, green onion, hot pepper flakes, hot pepper paste, rice cake, sugar, water,