How to make... Tteokbokki (떡볶이)

What's Tteokbokki? It's a very very very spicy Korean snack (even spicier than normal Korean food). "A favorite of collage students." - quote Miss Kwon.

We learned how to make this on Monday!

First, you can either use water in your recipe, or fish broth. How do you make fish broth? I'll go over that first!

Fish Broth, Ingredients:

• Dried Fish

• Radish

• Seaweed (not the type used in sushi. tougher and thicker)

1. Fill a large pot half full of water and dump in a handful of dried fish.
2. Cut up a handful of radish to make 3 or 4 large chunks about the size of your palm, add to water
3. Clean and cut a piece of seaweed into 3-4 palm sized pieces, add to water.
4. Turn heat on high and boil. Turn down to keep it at a simmer while we make the rest of the recipe.

Tteokbokki! Ingredients:

• Noodles- round rice cake noodles that look like mozzarella sticks cut in half.
• Sugar (brown or white, I don't think it matters)
• Chili Flakes/Powder
• Chili Paste
• Soy Sauce , or Salt

• Fish Cake

1. Pour the noodles in a bowl and soak for 10 minutes or more if they're particularly tough.
2. Use a small bowl to mix 3 tablespoons of chili paste, 1 tablespoon chili powder and 2 tablespoons sugar. Add in soy sauce until you have a thick paste like texture. You can use salt instead of soy sauce but the result won't be as good. Mix and add ingredients till it tastes good to you (sweet and very spicy, tangy).
3. Scoop out all dried fish and radishes and seaweed from the above broth if you made it. Throw them away.
4. Put noodles in a pot and cover with the broth from above (or water if you're being lazy), set to boil. Add in Fish Cakes.
5. Add in chili paste mixture. Stir. With soy sauce it should be a dark red color and thick. With salt it should be bright orange and a little more watery.

You can use the left over broth to make Fish Cake soup (tong) if you want to. Just make sure there's nothing left in the pot except broth and add fish cake. Boil for a couple minutes and voila!

So spicy, but so good!