Yujacha Hamantaschen

Today is Purim on the Jewish calendar, and Jews (and non-Jewish friends and family) all over the world are celebrating this holiday. The quintessential Purim food is a cookie called Hamantaschen. They are folded into a triangle and are meant to resemble either Haman's tri-corner hat or his ears, depending on which tradition you prefer.

This is my recipe for yujacha (Yuja/Yuzu syrup) Hamantaschen, which my Korean spin on this centuries-old Jewish favorite for our annual Purim celebration.

The first step is to make the dough. The recipe I'm using here is adapted from The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York by Claudia Roden. It is one part cookbook, one part history book, which is my favorite kind of cookbook. You will find this recipe on page 192. My commentary notes are in parenthesis.

1 3/4 cups flour
a pinch of salt (which you can omit if you use salted butter)
2 tablespoons sugar (I used brown sugar this time)
2-3 drops vanilla extract
5 ounces unsalted butter
1 egg yolk (I used the entire egg)
2-3 tablespoons of milk (which I didn't use)
1 egg, lightly beaten, for glaze

First, mix the flour, salt, sugar and vanilla extract. Cut the butter into pieces (or simply tear it off with your very clean fingers) into the flour and rub it in. Mix in the egg and press it into a ball.

I made two batches and put both of them into a gallon-sized sealable plastic bag and put them into the refrigerator to cool. If you don't have gallon-sized sealable plastic bags in your pantry, cover the bowl in plastic wrap and put it into your refrigerator.

While the dough is hanging out in the fridge, make your yujacha filling.

1/2 cup yujacha
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder (or cinnamon)
1 teaspoon brown sugar

Mix them together well and let them blend until your dough is cool enough to leave the refrigerator. If you like you can add a cup of chopped walnuts to the mix, which would be the case in a traditional Hamantaschen recipe. I didn't put any in this batch because a couple of my friends are allergic to treenuts.

Divide the dough into four equal segments for easier handling. Roll each piece on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin until the dough is about 1/8 inch thick. Cut into 3-inch rounds with a pastry cutter. Take the scraps, roll them out again and repeat the procedure until all the dough is used up.

Or you can take a lump of dough a bit bigger than a walnut and flatten the dough by pressing it in the palm of your hand, similar to how you'd made hotteok.

To shape into triangle, lift up right and left sides, leaving the bottom down and bring both side to meet at the center above the filling. Bring top flap down to the center to meet the two sides. Pinch edges together.

Arrange on a greased or non-stick tray and brush with the egg glaze.

Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 15-20 minutes.

Do not try to remove the Hamantaschen while they are still hot. They may crumble. Let them cool first on the tray. Once they are cooled off, lift them very carefully with a spatula, because they are fragile.

If the results don't resemble the tri-corner hats that were in fashion in the late 1700s, think of them as Vulcan ears. Whether they are neat and perfect or not, they taste really good. Beside, if your friends are really in the Purim spirit, they might be too drunk to care.

What is your "can't find it but I need it" ingredient?

I found a Korean pomegranate recipe on Korea.net by Kim Yong-ja back in December 2009. When I decided to make the Seongnyu-muk (Pomegranate Jelly) recipe, I knew immediately that I'd have to make a couple of modifications to make it more user-friendly (and edible for me and my family).

The first modification was the purchase of already squeezed pomegranate juice rather than squeezing it from scratch. Since pomegranate juice is readily available in most American supermarkets, that alteration went smoothly.

Koreans aren't the only ones who misspell English words on their packaging.

However, I also had to make a more serious alteration to the recipe. My family live by kosher dietary laws. This means we do not eat any pork or shellfish, ever. Since most gelatin is made from pork, someone who lives a kosher lifestyle must read labels to find out if the gelatin on the grocery store shelves is suitable for consumption. If you are looking for flavored gelatin, in such products as Jell-O, finding kosher certified options are no problem. Most of Jell-O's offerings are Kosher-certified, but I didn't want flavored gelatin, I needed unflavored gelatin and Jell-O doesn't sell unflavored gelatin.

The only kind of unflavored gelatin available in all the stores I visited was Knox. Knox's gelatin is not kosher. I traveled to every grocery store I could think of to find kosher unflavored gelatin and I came home empty handed every time.

The Hebrew makes more sense than the English.

Since none of the local stores near my home carried the unflavored kosher gelatin I needed for this recipe, I ordered it online at IsraeliKosher.com. Since the shipping was so expensive, I ordered more than I needed (and gave away the rest to some of my friends who find themselves in an equally difficult situation if they want to make this recipe.)

It arrived in the mail about a week after I ordered it. Even though the box was stuffed with old newspaper, the boxes were a bit rough around the edges.

The second detail I noticed was the misspelling of the word gelatin. Korean companies are often criticized for neglecting to hire native English speakers to review their packaging, PR releases, etc. before publishing. They aren't the only ones with that issue, apparently.

However, packaging and shipping are minor details. My main concern is whether the kosher gelatin works as well as the regular gelatin. I've never had "fish gelatin" before so this was quite the experiment for me.

Do you have a "must have" cooking ingredient impossible (or nearly impossible) to find on your local grocery store shelves? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

Gelatin

Street vendor harrassment in California

From the video: "Taco trucks pull up to curbs and offer LA eaters everything from tofu bowls to Korean barbeque. Customers flock to them, and recently so have police officers. Truck owners report being cited for everything from parking too close to curbs to parking too far away. Sometimes officers shut them down. Why would law enforcement target taco trucks for nuisance violations? Turns out nearby restaurants don't like the competition."

This clash between the police, brick-and-mortar restaurants and the truck food scene is not unique to Los Angeles. The business climate is worse in San Francisco. Initial setup costs for a truck food vendor in San Francisco can be as much as $150,000, according to the organizers of San Francisco Street Food Festival. Food and business permit costs an additional $10,000 per year. With those high-start up costs, one marvels at how most of these trucks can keep their costs down to less than $8 per dish.

One Korean fusion taco truck vendor called Seoul on Wheels wasn't able to overcome San Francisco's regulation structure. Julia Yoon now does most of her business on the east side of the San Francisco Bay. She started operating in and around Emeryville, Calif., by offering her Korean fusion flavor to Pixar Animation employees.

Some enterprising rolling restaurants have developed coping strategies by setting up weekly or monthly street food fairs. One in San Francisco last summer was very successful, based on the list of corporate sponsors including the Beringer wine brand and Whole Foods Market. Another sponsor was Foodbuzz, a San Francisco-based food blog community — of which both ZenKimchi and Beyond Koreanfornian Cooking are "featured publishers."

Police shut down a similar attempt at a weekly street fair in Los Angeles last year. Yet it has come back to life and is being organized as a yearly event. Imagine your favorite tteokbokki (떡볶이) or boong-o-bbang (붕어빵) stand in Seoul only being open once a year. These annual street fairs are better than nothing.

Now you have an idea of the uphill battle American urban food truck owners — Korean and non-Korean — face all the time just to stay in business.

JoongAng Daily and YouTube hangover soups

JoongAng Daily published a list of Korean hangover cure soups from all over South Korea. To help you make these yourself, I complied YouTube how-to videos on all the recipes mentioned in the article. The JoongAng recipes are only loose approximations of the ingredients — no portions or times.

Jeonju bean sprout soup by Maangchi



Sokcho dried pollack soup, a.k.a. bukeoguk (북어국), by Powerplanttop



Busan pork soup, or dwejigukbap (돼지국밥)

I didn't find a recipe posted on YouTube for this recipe. But I did find several versions of Spicy Pork Rib Soup, which is a very spicy version of the Busan Pork Soup recipe.

Spicy Pork Rib Soup (감자탕) by Crazy Korean Cooking.



Blood sausage soup, or byouncheonsoondeguk (병천순대국), by RainbowSB

OK, this one is not a recipe as much as it is a two-minute commercial (CF) singing the praises of the sausage.



I could not find video recipes for snail soup, or olgaengi haejang guk (올갱이해장국), or Seoul blood soup, Seoul seonjitguk (선짓국). Yet I think testing out the recipes I found in your own kitchen will adequately acquaint you with Korean hangover remedies.

Recipe: Kkaenip pesto pizza

Kkaenip pesto pizza fresh from the oven. (Tamar1973 photo)

I went crazy in the kitchen again. After working a 10-hour shift at work — yes, I got paid overtime — I was insanely hungry. My frazzled, work-worn brain decided to experiment on my dear husband again. Pizza seemed to be the simplest dinnertime option.

There was no pizza sauce in the house, and I was in the mood for traditional pesto sauce. While making my kkaenip pesto sauce, I substituted black garlic for raw, minced garlic to discover the differences between the two flavors in the same recipe.

Here's the recipe for kkaenip pesto sauce with black garlic:

3/4 cup olive oil
4 cloves black garlic
25 kkaenip leaves
1/2 cup toasted pinenuts
salt and pepper to taste

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and blend everything until it is a smooth paste. The resulting paste was a much deeper green than the regular kkaenip pesto.

Once I had the pesto made, I assembled the pizza.

pizza dough
1 batch kkaenip pesto with black garlic
1/4 cup shredded cheese
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 chicken thighs, seasoned with onion powder and black pepper and grilled

I happened to have a roll of Pillsbury pizza dough on hand. I smeared the sauce on the rolled dough then added the grilled chicken, shredded cheese and chopped onion. Baked it at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes, the crust top and bottom turned golden brown. I let the freshly baked pizza sit for about 10 minutes before slicing it.

That gave my husband plenty of time to take photos.

We both really liked it. Hubby said the black garlic flavor was between miso and garlic. I'm sure this sauce would work equally well with pasta.

Pine Nuts

Black Garlic

Obsessed with OB Beer?

For the man in your life who enjoys Korea's OB beer, these OB Bottlecap cufflinks are a unique expression of your man's love of his favorite Korean beer.

Creator lorenallen explains their construction as, "These South Korean bottle cap cufflinks are set in a combination of glue and silicone. The bond is extremely strong and will last for years and years to come. Since these caps really came from the tops of beer bottles, they may arrive with minor dings or scratches. However, those pictured above are the actual caps you will receive and they look really great and shiny to me!"

Help LiNK win $250k from Pepsi to help North Korean refugees

"...LiNK seeks to establish Liberty House, a six-month to a year transitional housing program which will provide newly arriving and recently-arrived North Korean refugees with critical assistance such as food, clothing, shelter and medical attention as well as a safe, nurturing and positive environment and community; while providing other development services (job training, career counseling, obtaining citizenship, relocation support, etc). ...

Currently, there is no such facility or program in the US solely dedicated to North Korean refugees and Liberty House’s location in LA is strategic in its large Korean-American population to serve as a bridge for North Koreans to American society.
North Koreans are a uniquely vulnerable population as they cannot return to their homes in North Korea as leaving the country is considered a capital offense punishable by prison camp sentences or even execution."

For more information about LiNK's work, check out their website at http://www.linkglobal.org/index.html. 

The 12th day of tteok: Gungjung tteokbokki (Korean palace rice cake)

새해 복 많이 받으세요! Today is the Lunar New Year, or Seollal (설날), in Korea as well as most of Asia. Our 12-day tteokbokki sauce recipe countdown has come full circle to Gungjung tteokbokki, which is the royal Korean court version of tteokbokki.

Thanks to the Korean TV drama Dae Jang Gum, this dish has become well known all over Asia. Gungjung tteokbokki was a special dish served in royal and noble households back in the days of the Joseon (Chosun) dynasty (1392–1910) on celebration days like the Lunar New Year or during ancestral ceremonies. The dish that people commonly call tteokbokki today with the fiery sauce and fish cakes is a modern, simplified version of this recipe.

There are several Gungjung tteokbokki recipes on the internet. The one most easily accessible to most Americans is posted at Chow, which is the basis of the recipe I made. If you want a downsized version, check out BlogCatalog.

This is the only tteokbokki recipe in which the garae tteok (가래떡) — the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki — are boiled beforehand and mixed in with the other ingredients quickly at the last minute.

Also notice the additional layers of flavor not seen in some of the other recipes, particularly marinating the meat and mushrooms separately before combining with the other ingredients in the final sauce.

There are two schools of thought on the egg garnish that I decided to use in this recipe. One school says to separate the egg yolk from the white and fry them separately, allow to cool and cut into thin strips, which is the version I use here. The other school says to separate the yolk and white, make the thin omelet and cut them on a diagonal to create diamond shapes.  I had great difficulty cooking the white just right without browning it. Practice will make perfect, someday.

There is one main difference between my version and the Gungjung tteokbokki recipes you will find online or in popular Korean cookbooks. The recipe books recommend using bulgogi type beef. I used ground sirloin in my recipe. I mixed the beef and the shiitake mushrooms in the recommended marinade and let them soak up the marinade for over 10 minutes. Then I formed the ground beef and mushrooms into tteokbokki-shaped meatballs or sausages.

Main Ingredients
1 package (16 ounces) round (cylindrical) garae tteok (Rice cake)
6 ounces ground beef
1 small carrot, julienned matchstick-style
1 small onion, julienned
1 bunch enoki, separated and rinsed
5 fresh or dried shiitake mushrooms (if dried, pre-soak for 20 minutes and trim "mushy stems")
3 eggs, yolk and white separated
3 ounces zucchini, seeds removed and julienned matchstick-style
2 ounces mung bean sprouts
1 large spring onion
grapeseed oil for cooking

Meat and mushroom seasoning

2 teaspoons soy sauce
5 shiitake mushrooms, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 cloves fresh garlic (makes 1 teaspoon minced)
1/2 teaspoon doenjang (soybean paste)
1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

Gungjung Sauce

1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cloves fresh garlic
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 green onion
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1. Mince the garlic and place all the meat and mushroom seasoning ingredients into a medium mixing bowl and mix well.
2. Let stand ten minutes before adding the meat and mushrooms to the meat and mushroom seasoning mix. Mix until throughly combined.  Let stand an additional 15-20 minutes. Shape the meat into tteok-sized sausages.
3. Bring a pot of water to a full boil over high heat. Add the rice cake and boil for one minute.
4. Remove the rice cake from the pot and rinse immediately in cold water. Discard the boiled water.
5. Brush the rice noodles with sesame oil.
6. Separate egg yolks from whites.
7. Whip the yolks together.
8. Pour yolks into a hot oiled pan in a thin layer (tilt pan back and forth to cover bottom of pan).
9. Cook the yolks over medium heat until top is just firm but bottom is not browned. Flip and cook 15 to 20 seconds. Remove from heat and let cool.
10. Cut the cooked yolk into thin strips about 1/8 inch wide by 1 1/2 inch long.
11. Repeat steps 7 through 10 with the egg whites.
12. Place all ingredients for the Gungjung sauce into a bowl and mix well.
13. Lightly coat a stir fry pan with cooking oil and heat over medium to high heat.
14. Add beef and mushroom mix to pan and cook on all sides until they are completely cooked so they will hold their shape.
15. Quickly add all other vegetables and stir fry 30 seconds more.
16. Reduce heat to medium, add Gungjung sauce and the garae tteok, and simmer 10 minutes.
17. Garnish with egg strips and nuts then serve.

We have taken tteokbokki around the world and back again. I hope you appreciate this very versatile rice noodle and come up with your own creative ways of cooking it for yourself.

The 11th day of tteok: Ottogi curry tteokbokki

As our 12-day tteokbokki (떡볶이) sauce countdown to the Korean New Year
nears an end, we consider a Korean-Indian fusion curry sauce developed by Korean food company Ottogi in the late 1960s.

Koreans have put their own spin on curry and consume a lot of it. Today, I'm featuring Ottogi's hot curry paste in a sauce for tteok, or rice noodles.

Cooked with carrots, onions, potato and juicy chunks of beef, the common Korean curry dish would not grace the tables of the average Indian home because of a taboo against eating beef adopted from the South Asian country's Hindu heritage.

In this version, I'm leaving the potato out because we're already adding a starch in the form of the garae tteok (가래떡), which are the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki.

Here's my take on the recipe printed on the back of the Ottogi curry spice packet.

1 package of Ottogi curry mix
5.5 ounces beef, cut for fajitas to compliment the tteok
3/4 cup garae tteok, presoaked and drained
1 cup onion, sliced thin
1/2 cup carrot, sliced thin
2 teaspoon grapeseed oil
3.5 cups water

1. Presoak the garae tteok in hot water — not boiling water — for about 10 minutes. (Consult the package for directions.)
2. Slice the beef, onion and carrot and saute lightly in grape seed oil.
3. Add 3 cups of water to the vegetables and bring back to boil.
4. Mix curry powder with 1/2 cup of water until it's a moist paste.
5. Add the curry paste to the rest of the mixture.
6. Continue to simmer until the beef is nearly cooked.
7. Add the garae tteok and cook for an additional five to 10 minutes until the noodles are ready.

The 10th day of tteok: Hawaiian tteokbokki

As we head back west across the Pacific on our 12-day tteokbokki (떡볶이) sauce recipe  countdown to the Korean New Year, the next stop is Hawaii.

America's 50th state is also the first place many Asian immigrants settled in the 19th century.

Hawaiian cuisine is synonymous with Asian fusion cooking as immigrants from Japan, Samoa, Portugal, the Philippines, China and Korea settled there, mixing the culinary traditions of their respective homelands with indigenous ingredients to create a unique and iconic cuisine.

Today's tteokbokki recipe features a simple Hawaiian sauce:

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 onion, minced
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon curry powder
14 ounces coconut milk or milk
2 ounces soju
1 teaspoon garlic sea salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger or ginger juice
3 tablespoons soy sauce

1. Soak one pound of garae tteok (가래떡), which are the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki and common at Korean grocery stores, in a hot water — not boiling water — for 10 minutes. (Check the instructions on the package of tteok for recommendations on this step). 
2. While the noodles are soaking, you can start on the sauce.
3.  Put the coconut oil into your skillet. Saute the onions until they are translucent. 
4. Add the garlic and saute for a minute more. 
5. Add the rest of the the ingredients into the skillet. 
6. After the sauce starts to bubble, add the garae tteok and cook for about five to 10 more minutes until the noodles are cooked to your satisfaction.
7. If you really need some protein, add a can or two of chopped Spam or other meat to the recipe during the last five minutes of cooking. That will heat up the meat and maintain the Hawaiian spirit of the dish.

The ninth day of tteok: Buffalo chicken tteokbokki

(Tamar1973 photos)

Anchor Bar in Buffalo, N.Y., is the undisputed home of Buffalo chicken wings and the next stop on our 12-day tteok recipe countdown to the Korean New Year. The bar's sweet, fiery sauce is often imitated, but never duplicated, at least until the Anchor Bar decided to start bottling the sauce in large quantities for sale.

A friend of mine brought me a bottle of Buffalo sauce directly from that city — thanks Cynthia. I'm using this as the basis of my latest fusion tteokbokki (떡볶이) recipe.

1 pound tteokbokki noodles (presoaked and dried)
1/2 cup butter
8 ounces Buffalo wing sauce
1 pound chicken breast, sliced lengthwise to approx 1-inch strips 
3 stalks celery, cut into long sticks about the length of tteokbokki noodles

1. The first step in any tteokbokki recipe is to pre-soak the noodles in hot water for about 10 minutes. (Consult the package of garae tteok (가래떡), which are the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki, and follow those directions.)
2. Put the butter in the skillet set on medium heat.
3. Add the soaked and dried tteok and fry for about 5 minutes. Flip over and fry on the other side, until golden-brown. Set aside.
4. Add the chicken and saute until it's about half-cooked. Increase the temperature to medium high.
5. Pour the buffalo wing sauce into your skillet, add the celery and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the tteokbokki noodles and cook for about 5 minutes more until the noodles are cooked.
6. Serve with an optional cup of bleu cheese or ranch dressing on the side for dipping.

Buffalo Wings Sauce

The eighth day of tteok: Texas-style BBQ sauce with tteokbokki

If Koreans are the kings and queens of Far-East Asian barbecue, then Texas reigns supreme over American barbecue. So we're visiting the Lone Star State for the eighth day of my 12-day tteokbokki (떡볶이) recipe countdown to the Korean New Year.

With heavy Spanish, Czech and German influences, Texas barbecue is bold and full of flavor. The Texan tradition of slow-smoked barbecue is the opposite of Korean quick grilling. Yet the Texan method forces the toughest cuts of beef into tender submission.

The traditional Korean way of making tteokbokki reminds many ex-pats of gnocchi's chewy texture. Some Americans have an aversion to tteokbokki because of the texture of the noodles. However, I like them either way.  If you want to try something different frying the tteok noodles before making the sauce will give the tteok a crispy exterior. Most of the recipes I have shown so far cook the noodles to more of an al dente texture. If you like the Korean tteokbokki texture, you need to cook the noodles a bit longer, or 10 to 15 minutes.

I adapted this Texan barbecue sauce recipe from PepperFool.

1 pound garae tteok (가래떡), presoaked
3 tablespoons grapeseed oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 tbsp garlic, minced
3 ribs celery, finely chopped
1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1.5 cups water
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce (or A-1 sauce)
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon Mexican-style chili powder, or to taste

1. Before you start making the sauce, soak the garae tteok, which are the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki, in a hot water bath — not boiling water — for 10 minutes. (Check the instructions on the package of tteok you bought at the Korean grocery store for recommendations on this step.) Dry off the noodles.
2. In a large, preheated skillet, add the grapeseed oil then the soaked and dried tteok. Fry for about five minutes.
3. Flip over and fry on the other side, until golden-brown. Remove from the skillet and set aside.
4. Add onion, garlic and celery. Cook and stir until onion is tender.
5. Stir in ketchup, vinegar, 1.5 cups water and Worcestershire sauce. (Please consider a brand that doesn't have high-fructose corn syrup, such as Heinz Organic Ketchup.)
6. Add bay leaves and black pepper.
7. Stir a small amount of sauce into chili powder and blend well. Like curry paste, you must do this to dissolve the chili powder quickly.
8. Stir the chili mixture into the sauce.
9. Allow the sauce to simmer for about 5 minutes.
10. Return the tteok to the sauce and simmer for five to seven more minutes
11. Remove bay leaves and serve immediately.

You will have leftover sauce after the noodles are gone. If you want to use up the rest of the sauce, sauté one pound of lean ground beef and combine it with the remaining sauce and make yourself some Texan sloppy joes.

The seventh day of tteok: Chicken in mole poblano tteokbokki

For today's installment of the 12-day countdown to the Korean New Year, I'm bringing tteokbokki (떡볶이) to the new world, first stop in Mexico. Due to the labor-intensive nature of traditional Mexican mole sauces, I am not going to make this mole from scratch. The mole that Americans recognize is mole poblano.

Wikipedia says,

Mole poblano is prepared with dried chili peppers (commonly ancho, pasilla, mulato and chipotle), ground nuts and/or seeds (almonds, indigenous peanuts, and/or sesame seeds), spices, Mexican chocolate (cacao ground with sugar and cinnamon and occasionally nuts), salt, and a variety of other ingredients including charred avocado leaves, onions, and garlic. Dried seasonings such as ground oregano are also used. In order to provide a rich thickness to the sauce, bread crumbs or crackers are added to the mix.

Notice that the sauce has an appearance similar to jjajangmyun (짜장면, Korean black bean paste noodles). This recipe could make an interesting North American alternative for jjajangmyun when "Black Day" comes around on April 14. Something to think about.

1 pound garae tteok noodles (가래떡), presoaked
1/4 cup mole poblano paste
1 cup chicken stock
1 pound chicken thighs, diced
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 onion, diced
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds for a garnish

1. Before you start making the sauce, soak your garae tteok, which are the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki, in a hot water bath — not boiling water — for 10 minutes. (Check the instructions on the package of tteok you bought at the Korean grocery store for recommendations on this step.) Dry them off.
2. Sauté the chicken thighs, garlic and onion in grapeseed oil until the chicken is about halfway cooked.
3. Add the chicken stock and mole paste.
4. Once the mole sauce has returned to a boil, put in the tteok and cook for an additional five to seven minutes until the tteok is cooked.

Mole Poblano

The sixth day of tteok: Beef Bolognese tteokbokki

(Tamar1973 photo)

Today's tteokbokki (떡볶이) recipe as part of my 12-day countdown to the Korean New Year keeps us on the Italian peninsula by using Bologna's famous sauce as the wardrobe for the tteok noodles.

When I lived in South Korea, I did not know much about cooking. My cooking skills were limited to grilled cheese sandwiches and the occasional one-pot meal, usually featuring a couple of chicken breasts thrown in a rice cooker with two cups of rice mixed with random spices thrown in for flavor.

The last three months or so in Korea, we had a Korean woman who made lunch for us every day. When she wasn't making Korean foods like japchae, she was making some kind of Korean fusion recipe (with interesting results). When she made Bolognese sauce for us, I though the diced carrots were a Korean innovation. It wasn't until much later I discovered spaghetti Bolognese and realized why the carrots were there. Our Korean cook was right; I was the babo (바보, "dummy").

There's only one difference between this recipe and hers. I remember our Korean cook's version was a bit sweeter — maybe because she didn't put wine in her sauce — than the version I have here. Hubby liked mine better though.

1 carrot, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup green bell pepper, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 pound ground beef
2 cans (15 ounce) tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup red wine (use a brand you'd actually drink, not "cooking wine")
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons basil
2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoon lemon peel, grated
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon thyme, dry
salt and pepper to taste
1 pound garae tteok, presoaked

1. Soak garae tteok (가래떡), which are the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki, in a hot water bath — not boiling water — for 10 minutes. (Check the instructions on the package of tteok noodles you bought at the Korean grocery store or Asian supermarket for recommendations on this step.)
2. Saute carrots, garlic, onion, celery and green pepper in oil on medium high heat.
3. Add ground beef and brown. Drain fat. 
4. Add tomato sauce, water, red wine, sugar and Italian seasoning. Cover sauce and simmer for 30 minutes. 
5. During the last five to 10 minutes of cooking time, add the garae tteok and simmer until they're tender.

The leftover sauce — if there is any — will match well with any pasta, particularly penne.

Homemade Bolognese Sauce

The fifth day of tteok: Arrabbiata tteokbokki

For the fifth day of my 12-day tteokbokki recipe countdown to the Korean New year, I combined the tasty rice noodles with an Italian pasta sauce called Arrabiata.

The word arrabiata literally means "angry sauce" and comes from the southern part of the Italian peninsula. This is the first Italian — and probably only — Italian sauce I've made that might make a Korean sweat or want to blow the nose.

1 pound garae tteok noodles (presoaked)
1 teaspoon Korean pepper powder (gochugaru) or hot paprika
1 teaspoon Italian red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup red wine (use a wine that you'd actually drink)
1 can (14.5 ounces) chopped tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste

First, soak your garae tteok (가래떡), which are the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki, in a hot-water bath — not boiling water — for 10 minutes. (Check the instructions on the package of tteok you bought at the Korean grocery store for recommendations on this step.) While the garae tteok are soaking, start on your Arrabiata sauce.

Warning: Several recipes for Arrabiata sauce I read start off something like this: "Saute the gochugaru and red pepper flakes in about 3 tbsp. olive oil. Add garlic and saute until you start to smell garlic in your kitchen." Do this at your own risk. Unless you have a commercial kitchen with a heavy-duty exhaust fan, you will mace yourself and your family — and possibly set off your fire alarm. That's not a good first step, unless you want your spouse, children and family pets to be very angry with you.

Start the sauce preparation with approximately three tablespoons of olive oil in your sauce pan. Add garlic and saute until you start to smell garlic in your kitchen. Add the onions, and saute them until they are nearly translucent. At this point, add the gochugaru, Italian red pepper flakes and tomatoes. Cook for about 10 minutes.

Next, get out the stick blender and blend the sauce until it is relatively smooth.

Finally, add the presoaked tteok and simmer for about five to 10 more minutes until the garae tteok are cooked.

Penne Arrabiata

The fourth day of tteok: Korma curry tteokbokki

The fourth day of my 12-day tteokbokki recipe countdown to the Korean New Year continues our culinary journey in India. Today's inspiration is Korma Curry, which is a staple of North Indian Mughlai cuisine. The recipe for Korma curry goes back to the 16th century, when Persia’s Mughal Empire controlled much of India.

This recipe packs some decent heat, but Korma curry also has a lot of flavor. The basic recipe comes from Sukhi's, which is a San Francisco Bay area company that produces a popular line of Indian curry pastes and sauces.

1 pound garae tteok noodles
1 packet Sukhi’s Korma Curry Sauce
1/4 cup whipping cream
3/4 cup water

Soak the garae tteok (가래떡), which are the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki, in hot water for 10 minutes beforehand.

In saucepan, add garae tteok, Sukhi’s Korma Curry Sauce and water. Mix ingredients together well, and simmer on medium high heat. When the tteok is cooked, stir in cream. Bring to boil. Serve hot.

Korma