Tteokbokki

Tteokbokki

Tteokbokki (Korean: 떡볶이) is a Korean traditional food which has sticks of rounded rice cake as the main ingredient. ' tteok ' is the Korean word for rice cake and 'bokki' is the Korean word for something fried.

Tteokbokki is divided into gungjung tteokbokki and general tteokbokki as one of Korean street foods.

Types

Gungjung tteokbokki

Gungjung tteokbokki (Korean: 궁중떡볶이) is made by frying beef and rice cake with soy sauce. It was developed in gungjung which means a Korean court.

General tteokbokki is cooked with seasoning using gochujang with starch syrup or sugar for the sweet taste. Generally gungjung tteokbokki uses beef and vegetable because it was cooked at court but general tteokbokki uses fish cake, green onions and boiled egg.

jja-jang tteokbokki

jja-jang tteokbokki (Korean: 짜장떡복이) is a stir-fried dish with jjajang.

History

In a cook book named 'Siuijeonseo' which was written in late 1800s, there is a record of tteokbokki. However, tteokbokki might have existed before the late 1800s because the main ingredient is rice cake and there were rice cakes during the Three Kingdoms of Korea period. Gungjung tteokbokki is different from tteokbokki because there were no red peppers in Joseon Dynasty so they made gungjung tteokbokki with vegetables and meats. Modern tteokbokki was first made by Mabokrim who has sold tteokbokki with gochujang since 1953.