Vegan Bunny Elle

Make the iconic garaetteok, aka Korean rice cake, from scratch with only three ingredients. You can use it for so many dishes and snacks.

Some of my fondest childhood memories all revolve around this one simple, humble food, rice cake, or tteok. I love the chewy, pillowy, tender tteok simmered in a budaejjiggae (Korean army stew), or in a sweet and spicy broth as tteokbokki, or threaded on a skewer, grilled, then brushed with a gochujang glaze as tteok-kkochi.

Funnily enough, I never felt the need to make tteok from scratch until I moved to the US, and finding fresh, high-quality tteok became a real challenge. Turns out it’s actually much easier to make tteok myself than to painstakingly find a reliable source!

The ingredients and the process of making tteok are both quite simple. First, we’ll make a rice flour dough, cook the dough by either steaming or microwaving, then comes the fun part, we pound away! The more we pound the dough the chewier and bouncier it gets. And finally, the rice cake will be ready to shape and use in any dish you like.

Homemade Korean Rice Cake Graetteok

Make the iconic garaetteok, aka Korean rice cake, from scratch with only three ingredients. You can use it for so many dishes and snacks.

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Ingredients Method Video

Ingredients

  

• 2 cup rice flour not glutinous
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 – 1 1/4 cup boiling water
• Sesame oil for brushing as needed

Tteok-Kkochi sauce-

• 1 tablespoon gochujang
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• 1 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 2 garlic cloves grated

Method

 

1. Mix rice flour and salt in a mixing bowl, slowly pour the boiling water into the flour while stirring with the other hands, using a pair of chopsticks or a spatula, the exact amount of water needed depends on the moisture level of your rice flour, which can vary a lot, the consistency of the mixture should be a rough dough;
2. Transfer into a lined steamer and steam on high for 20 – 25 minutes;
3. Or, loosely cover the dough mixture and microwave for 2 minutes, take the mixture out, stir and mix, then microwave fro another 2 minutes;
4. Brush your working surface with some sesame oil or use a silicone mat, transfer the cooked dough to the work surface, pound the dough with a pestle or wood rolling pin for at least 5 minutes, until the dough is smooth;
5. Shape the dough into long cylinder “ropes”, the tteok is now ready to eat! You can eat them straight up dipped in some maple syrup and sesame oil;
6. Or, you can thread the tteok onto a skewer, grill each side for a few minutes until golden brown, then brush on the tteok-kkochi sauce;
7. You can also use these rice cakes in a stew, or soup, or any other way you like, enjoy!

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