Duk Boki (Korean Spicy Rice Cake)

Source: http://koreanfood.about.com




Duk Boki is a popular Korean street food, which is cylindrical rice cake (= duk in Korean) covered in thick & spicy sauce.  It is also eaten as casual meal at home or as a drinking snack.  Recipe here used fish cake and Napa cabbage as cooking ingredients, but it is also possible to include meat of choice, or just with vegetable of choice for the vegetarian verson.




Prep Time: 1 hr
Cook time: 15 mins
Serves ~4

Ingredients:
Cylindrical rice cake (duk), cut into 2" length & soaked in water for 1 hr, 500g
Napa cabbage, cleaned & cut into 1" squares, 500g
Fish cake*, ~150g size, cut into half then slices, 2 pcs
Shitake mushroom, soaked then sliced, 3 pcs 

Sauce:
Water, 3 cups
Kochujang (hot chilli pepper sauce)**, 1 tbsp
Kochukaru (hot chilli pepper powder)***, 1 tsp
Sugar, 1 tbsp
Light soy sauce, 1½ tbspGarlic, minced, 1 tsp (~2 cloves)

* I used the giant fried fish cake bought from Tiong Bahru Fried Fish Ball stall in Singapore in this recipe
** & *** If not using Kochukaru, may increase Kochujang used from 1 tbsp to 2-4 tbsp, according to preferred spiciness



Method:
1. While soaking the rice cakes, cut cabbage and prepare other ingredients needed.

2. Mix all sauce ingredients and bring to boil in a big saucepan.  Stir occasionally as sauce will slowly thicken throughout cooking time.

3. Add in fish cake, stir well and bring to boil again.

4. Add in rice cake and remaining ingredients, and mix well with the sauce.  When boils, simmer for 3 mins and then turn off heat.