One of my favorite ways to make it is to include soft tofu, fresh cabbage, kimchi, carrots, fish tofu and berkshire pork sausages ❤ We usually have fish tofu, fish balls, and the berkshire pork sausages in our freezer to cook with instant noodles or for hotpot night, so it's a great addition to kimchi stews and soups as well! It is so perfect and so spicy delicious for when it's cold out! Warms you right up from the inside out 🥵❤

A trick to make your broth have more depth of flavor is to add a spoon of white miso, or to make a dashi broth base. You can boil dried kelp and anchovies to achieve this from scratch, or a spoonful of instant dashi also works in a pinch. It adds an extra bit of umami to the soup that is deeper and more delicious than just adding salt!

It only took about 10-15 minutes or so for it to be ready to eat, super easy one pot meal, and can be easily made vegetarian if you take out the sausage/fish tofu I added.

KIMCHI TOFU STEW
Makes 2 servings.

INGREDIENTS:
-1 tbsp gochujang
- 1 tbsp miso
- 1/2 tbsp sugar
- Gochugaru (1-2 tbsp) depending on how spicy you like it
- 1 cup kimchi
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1-2 cups chopped cabbage
- 1 chopped carrot
- fish tofu (optional)
- berkshire sausages (optional)
- 1 box soft tofu
- 2 cups vegetable broth or chicken broth

DIRECTIONS:
Just throw it all into a pot and boil together until the veggies are soft (to your liking). Would be awesome to eat with rice or if you are doing low carb, just eat it as is!

Hope you enjoy!

Until next time, 
​Jenny

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 ❤)

SPICY TTEOKBOKKI KOREAN RICE CAKE​

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

DIRECTIONS
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

After mixing the sauce, I place a dollop of it in the bottom of my serving bowl, add noodles and then add the toppings. Lastly, I garnish with sesame seeds and drizzle more chili oil and prickly ash oil on top! Honestly, it doesn't matter how you layer your ingredients, since you'll be mixing it all up to eat anyhow. To each their own!

INGREDIENTS:
​
Toppings

• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbsp lite soy sauce
• 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tbsp shaoxing wine or rice wine
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 tbsp corn starch
• Chinese sweet preserved radish, minced (optional)

Other toppings

• Chinese broccoli or bok choy
• Kimchi (optional)

Dan dan noodle sauce

• 2 tbsp peanut butter or 2 tbsp sesame paste
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1.5 tbsp lite soy sauce
• 1 tbsp shaoxing wine or rice wine
• 1 tbsp black vinegar, rice vinegar or white vinegar
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/4-1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 tbsp spicy Chinese chili bean paste or just Chinese bean paste if you don't do spicy.
• 1 tbsp crushed red pepper
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp prickly ash oil
• 2 teaspoon sriracha sauce

Handmade noodles (2-3 servings)​ or store bought noodles of your preference

This is a great dish to assemble and enjoy, and I love that it can be prepared relatively quickly (unless you are making the handmade noodles, which takes a little more waiting time). For me, I always have soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine and assorted spices in stock since they are staples in our home, which makes this dish that much easier to make. Plus they are versatile and used in many other Asian dishes, so it's a win win for us! We hope you enjoy this noodle dish!