-When I first put this
on the menu, all my Korean friends are like, "American people
don't eat that." But this dish has been
a best seller since we opened. ♪♪ My name is Ji Hye Kim. I'm the chef at
Miss Kim Korean restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Today we're here
to make tteokbokki, the quintessential
Korean street snack. The first thing
that you want to do when you're making this recipe
is check your rice cake quality. So if you're getting fresh ones
that are never frozen, then you don't have
to do this part. But most of the times you will
be able to get rice cakes that are cryo-packed and in the refrigerator section
of your grocery store. And that's perfectly fine. But we want to help it
a little bit by putting it in warm water
to relax. Right. So I have some water. And this does not have
to be a boiling water. It can be, like,
piping hot from the faucet. These are the shapes
that you will get. You can get many different types
of rice cakes, flavored ones,
round ones, circle ones. But these are the most typical. The thing to remember
about rice cakes is that, unlike pasta,
it's already cooked. It hardens after
it finishes cooking, and then it transports
really easily. But that's also why
you want to introduce some more moisture to them
so they relax a little bit. You can soak it
for like half an hour. You can soak it in
the refrigerator overnight. You just don't want to soak it
in room temperature for a long time. While these are soaking,
we're going to put them aside, and then we're going
to start making our sauce. First thing I'm going to do is
I'm going to chop my scallions and mince my garlic. This dish is actually
a very interesting dish because right now, these days,
it's known as street food. So -- And it's really
dirt cheap. You can get it anywhere. You can get it from like
a grab-and-go, to-go places. You can order it on your app. You can -- You see it in like
little, like, outdoor huts. But this dish is actually -- initially was for
kings and queens. You see the recipe in, like,
royal cuisine, in palace cuisine
in like 18th century. And it was a very different dish
than how it looks now. Right now, the street versions
that you would see are, like, rice cakes
and gochujang sauce. And it's not sautéed at all. It's actually
more close to braised. It's a very soft, tender --
like a comforting dish. I love stories of the food.
I wouldn't say I'm a historian. I am lucky to still
read and write Korean. And Korean people
love their ancestors and their stories
and culinary traditions. So it's really readily --
information's readily, readily available,
just not in English. I just started reading a lot
about different Korean food. This dish's story
is really interesting because it does go from like an 18th century
really fancy food to the cheapest,
most accessible, and most beloved dish. We have gochujang, which is
one of Korean mother sauces. It's fermented chili paste. We're going to put gochujang
in there. Okay. Korean chili flakes,
which is gochugaru. Sugar. You can use many
different kind of sugar, but I prefer the brown sugar,
or you can even use maple syrup. Soy sauce... and sesame oil... and a little bit of water. That's going to make your sauce
a little looser so it's easier to work with
when you're sautéing it. And all you have to do
is sort of give it a good stir. This sauce keeps really well
in the fridge. As long as you
keep it refrigerated, it's probably good
for two weeks or more. Rice cakes soaking.
The sauce is made and set aside. And, at this point,
you can just have a lot of fun. We're going to today make
six-minute eggs. But, honestly, you don't have
to have six-minute eggs. You can have seven-minute eggs
or nine-minute eggs or hard boiled eggs. So we have eggs,
and I think important thing is to drop it as gently as you can, because even a little bit
of a crack can give you egg drop soup
instead of a six-minute egg. And we were --
Egg drop soup's great, but you don't want
egg drop soup for this. I did grow up in a family
that food was really important, but it was sort of almost like
a foregone conclusion. Food was supposed to be good. My mom cooked all the time.
She's the best cook I know. Bubbly thing happens because
there's a crack in the egg, and then tiny bit
of egg whites sneaking up. But that's okay. Yeah, just turn it down,
and you'll be fine. So, I was born
and raised in Korea. I didn't grow up cooking. I did grew up eating lots
of good homemade food. And street food, like tteokbokki
that we're making today, was forbidden. And I came to United States
when I was 13. [ Alarm chirping ]
Whoa! That's the timer. Okay. We're going to pause
and then get the eggs out. All right. So just gently get it out of
the hot water into the ice bath. And then the eggs
will hang out there for a little bit
until it's easy to handle, and then we can peel them.
That's it. We have almost everything ready
to put the dish together. We just need to do
a couple of things. So first thing I want to do is get the rice cakes
out of the water. Then you can just
use a colander. So you want to do this first because we're going to put
those rice cakes into a pan
that's been preheated, so you don't want to have
too much moisture still clinging
to the rice cakes. All right. And then we will do
some garnish. All right. So you just need
a little scallions. All right. Next I am going
to do -- peel the eggs. And then, when you crack this, you can't crack this like this
is a hard boiled egg because it could easily
rip the white part. So just, like,
gently tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap,
tap, tap, tap, tap. All right. There you go. Egg's pretty squishy, so you don't want to
sort of like manhandle it. You want to go gentle. We have fresh pork belly. So I'm going to cut it
kind of thin so that we can cook it
fairly fast. First thing I'm going to do
is turn the heat on. Okay, so oil. And then,
because we're going to -- going with the raw pork, I'm going to start cooking
the pork first. This is sort of like
our take on it. If you were to go
to a street vendor, you're going to see a vat
already cooked rice cakes drowning in sauce a little bit. So when the meat is cooking, I'm going to put
a little sprinkle of sugar. What the sugar is going to do
is help caramelize the rice cakes fairly fast. Yeah. Add the rice cakes. When you add rice cakes,
don't dump it, because you see how much water
is pooling there. You don't want to have
super hot pan and then dumping water right in. Give it a little stir. And you can see
the golden brown happening. That one is pretty good
because it's golden brown with some darker brown bits
showing up. Even though gochujang is
a little bit of a spicy sauce, this is kids' favorite
afternoon snack. So moms can cook this at home. And I lower the heat
a little bit because I want the rice cakes
a little harder. So I wanted it
to cook a little bit. But if you lower the heat,
just make sure you're -- you've already gotten some
browning and crispiness first. Now it's time to go.
Okay. Sauce. Oh, you know what?
I'm just going to dump. Okay. That's it.
Rice cakes already cooked. You want to get it so that
the sauce is not super liquidy. Now we're ready to plate. Any bowl that you would use
pasta is a great choice. Dump it. Okay.
Here's my chef-y plating tip. Do not move it.
It's like a greasy spicy sauce. And when you first dump it, just make sure the center is
a little higher, but that's it. So pick a pretty side,
and then just do halfway. And then let's just crack that
open so the yoke just oozes out. Some fancy scallions all around. So, we throw these
just thinly sliced chilies that are sun-dried,
and it's mostly for the look. But when you're garnishing, I like having garnish that has
some sort of reference. And this is made
with a lot of chili paste and chili sauce, so yeah. There. Right in the middle.
And then there you are. That's street-style tteokbokki
from Miss Kim. Super easy. It's amazing and luxurious to
have this whole plate to myself because I wasn't allowed
to have this as a child. Like that. Mmm. Yeah. Crispy on the outside. And then the inside
is still soft and chewy. Or...don't be afraid
to use a spoon. So you can just go
right in there with a -- Yeah. There. I hope you make
this dish at home. You can get the recipe
on the link down below. Come visit me in Ann Arbor. We're in Kerrytown,
Ann Arbor, Michigan. I would love to feed you. ♪♪ ♪♪
