Tteokbokki

Tteokbokki is cylindrical rice cakes simmered in a thick, sweet-spicy gochujang sauce until glossy and chewy. It is Korea's most iconic street food, sold from carts and small stalls long before it found its way onto restaurant menus.

What it really is

Short cylinders of chewy rice cake simmer directly in a sauce built on gochujang, gochugaru and sugar, thinned with a little stock or water so it can reduce down around the rice cakes as they cook. The starch the rice cakes release as they simmer thickens the sauce further, until it clings to each piece in a glossy coat rather than pooling thin at the bottom of the pan.

The rice cakes are simmered in the sauce, not just coated in it afterward. Cooking them directly in the sauce is what lets the starch they release thicken it naturally, and it's also what gives the rice cakes their soft, slightly stretchy bite rather than a firm, separately-boiled texture.

How it is served

• In a shallow bowl or straight from the pan it was cooked in.
• Often with fish cake, boiled egg or scallion added to the same pot.
• As a street snack, though larger portions appear as a shared dish too.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the soy in the sauce.
• Rate the heat honestly, since gochujang-based sauces vary widely in how spicy they're made.
• Say if fish cake or other additions are included, since the base dish is vegetarian on its own but often isn't served that way.