This chewy Korean rice cake dish is spicy, savory and sweet 😋 you can add anything you really want to it, but for this recipe I added some bean curd sticks, marinated chicken thigh and king oyster mushrooms 🍄The alarmingly red spicy gochujang sauce keeps you warm for sure, and I particularly love eating this dish on cold, rainy or wintery days. This dish goes well with Japanese or Korean Berkshire Pork Sausages, enoki mushrooms, shimeji mushrooms, spam, and more! Some folks also like to add ramen to it, making it a "rabokki" instead of "tteokbokki". It can get pretty spicy, but you can adjust the amount of gochugaru and gochujang and add more agave nectar or sugar for sweetness to balance it out for something more mild. I absolutely love the chewiness of the rice cake, and the fiery spicy sauce definitely wakes up the senses!

The Chinese equivalent of the Korean rice cake is usually more flat, oval shaped and is often eaten during holidays. I personally like the Korean rice cake more though, because the cylindrical shape gives it more of a delightful chew 😊

Here is my recipe (I also added a little bit of prickly ash oil for that spicy mala flavor ❤)
​
INGREDIENTS
• Korean Tteokbokki rice cake 1/4-1/3 bag
• 1 tbsp Gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes/powder)
• 2 oz chicken thigh
• 1/2 cup julienned king oyster mushroom
• 1 oz bean curd sticks
• 2 tbsp gochujang
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 tbsp agave nectar
• 1 tsp mala prickly ash oil
• 1/2 tbsp minced garlic
• 1/2 cup water

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Cook garlic and chicken until cooked through. Add julienned king oyster mushrooms and bean curd sticks and mix.
2. Add rice cakes, 1/2 cup water, gochujang, oyster sauce. Add agave nectar and gochugaru to desired sweetness and spice level.
3. Mix well and let cook on medium high heat until sauce becomes thick and sticky, and the rice cakes are cooked to desired softness. Serve with some scallions on top. Enjoy!

Until next time,
Jenny

This is pan fried turnip cake, or 香煎蘿蔔糕, a delicious turnip cake that is first steamed with daikon radish, Chinese sausage, shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp and scallions that is pan fried until crispy and golden brown.

Chinese turnip cake always makes me think of busy dim sum Sundays with family and friends and is such a nostalgic dish. Like my shrimp cheung fun recipe, this was born out of a craving during the COVID19A quarantine and wanting some luo bak go and not being able to go out for dim sum!

This is such an easy recipe—it's one of those one pot recipes where you throw everything togeher and let it cook. There's only a little prep work involved where you have to shred the daikon radish and stir fry the ingredients before mixing all of it in a bowl. To steam the turnip cake, I used a 12x3 metal circle pan that fit my wok, but you can honestly use whatever you have on hand and you can separate the batches depending on the size of your pan and steamer. Steam for an hour, let cool completely and it's ready to eat! Or, my favorite way is to cut it up and pan fry with some oil for a great crispy outside and soft turnip cake inside. I typically like to cover it and leave in the fridge overnight for it to settle and then crisp it up for breakfast or dim sum brunch the next day!

​I'm so happy that we can now enjoy this dish at home and I hope you enjoy it too!

Recipe Serves 8

INGREDIENTS

• 2 daikon radish, about 10-12 inch long each, shredded
• 200 grams of rice flour
• 50 grams corn starch
• 2 cups water
• 4 Chinese sweet lap cheong (cured Chinese sausage), diced
• 4 scallions, diced
• 1/8 cup dried shrimp, finely minced
• 4 large shiitake mushrooms or 8 small shiitake mushrooms (use dried shrooms and rehydrate them before dicing)
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 3 tsp oyster sauce
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp chicken powder (or salt)
• 1 tsp white pepper

DIRECTIONS:

1. Skin the daikon radish and shred it with a large toothed grater. If you don't have, you can use a fruit peeler to shave the radish down into strips, then roughly chop into shredded pieces.
2. Place all the shredded radish into a large pan and cook until no more excess liquid is produced and the radish is cooked through/translucent. You can taste it to make sure it is softened.
3. Heat a separate pan on medium heat and cook the diced Chinese sausage, releasing its oils. As it cooks, add the minced shrimp, shiitake mushrooms and scallions and mix thoroughly.
4. Once the meat mixture is cooked through, add it to the daikon radish. Add the oyster sauce, chicken powder, sesame oil and sugar and mix well.
5. In a large mixing bowl, add the rice flour, cornstarch and 2 cups of water. Mix well until lumps are gone. Then, add the daikon mixture into the mixing bowl and stir until well incorporated.
6. Use a large steam pan (I used a 12x3 circular pan) and pour the entire mixture into the pan. Steam on medium heat for 1 hour. After 1 hour, remove the turnip cake from the steamer and allow to cool completely.
7. Enjoy as is or slixe into desired thickness and pan fry with oil until both sides are crispy and golden.

​Enjoy!

Until next time,
Jenny

So while being at home during this pandemic, we've been craving dim sum like crazy. Dim Sum is a Cantonese tradition of breakfast or brunch food, and might be compared to Spanish tapas where all the dishes are small dishes meant to be shared. "Dim Sum" literally translates to 'dim' - to touch, and 'sum' - heart" or "to touch the heart" or "order to your heart's content". Traditionally, dim sum places involve restaurant staff, usually elderly Chinese Aunties, pushing hot steaming carts with steamers piled high and calling out what they have in their carts. (various dumplings, bao buns, mini steamed dishes of cheung fun noodles, siu mai, pork ribs and more.) You'll often hear classics like, "Ha gow! (shrimp dumplings) Siu mai! (pork dumplings), Fung Zhao! (braised chicken feet)" 

Waiters will walk around with trays of freshly fried foods or fresh out of the kitchen dishes like salt and pepper shrimp, calamari, fried bacon wontons, fried taro nests, stir fried clams and dear lord my mouth is watering!! Going for dim sum is an experience--it's loud, crowded, full of families and kids running around, adults gossiping and chatting, plenty of laughter and mountains of good food to stuff your face with. 

One of my favorite dishes is the Cheung Fun (Steamed Rice Noodle) with Shrimp, also known as "Ha Cheung" in Cantonese. After some research and trying out quite a few recipes from different sources, I finally found a recipe for shrimp cheung fun that tastes like restaurant quality cheung fun!​