Spicy Korean Rice Cakes with Cheese

*Post by Angela.

Last weekend, I was really excited to be able to convince @KrisDub of Rock My Palate and @cattycritic from Dining With The Catty Critic to come over to our house for some Korean fried chicken. But you can't invite food bloggers over and just offer one thing. I decided to whip up some homemade kimchee and try my hand at remaking a dish all three of us had enjoyed at Biergarten, the Volcano Cheese Rice Cakes. Based on the menu description and my memory, the dish appeared to be traditional ddukppoki (a Korean street food favorite) with cheese melted on top. Simple enough. I found an easy recipe for the ddukppoki - and a new go-to blog - at Beyond Kimchee.

 

List of ingredients:

• 6 1/2 cups of water
• 15-18 dried anchovies
• 2 4"x 2" pieces dried kelp
• 2 lbs rice cakes
• 8 tbsp Korean red chili paste (gochujang)
• 4 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 4 1/2 sheets fried fish cakes, cut into 2" chunks
• 1 small cabbage, sliced
• 1 leek, sliced, white and light green parts only
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• Slices of mozzarella cheese (or the cheese of your choice)

First I had to make the fishy stock, which drove Mark nearly out of the house with the smell. I poured the 6 1/2 cups of water into small pot, added the anchovies and dried kelp and brought it up to a boil. Then I reduced the heat, covered and simmered for about 10 minutes. I'm not gonna lie, even though I'm a voracious seafood eater, something about looking at the anchovies in the boiling water squicked me out a little. Anyway, after 10 minutes, I took the pot off the heat and let it sit about 15 minutes to let the flavors develop. Then I strained out the anchovies and kelp and reserved the stock.

 

In the meantime, I soaked the rice cakes in cold water for about 20 minutes to let them soften up.

 

I poured the stock into a big pot, added the chili paste and sugar, and stirred until well-combined. I put the pot on the stove over medium high heat, then added the drained rice cakes and cabbage.

I brought it all up to a boil, then reduced the heat to medium low and simmered about 10 minutes. After just a couple of minutes, the bright orange sauce started to thicken from the starch of the rice cakes.

 

At this point, I threw in the fish cakes and the garlic and cooked another 10 minutes. Then I stirred in the leek and the ketchup and cooked just a minute or two more.

 

This is approximately where the dish should have ended. But I wanted that little Biergarten twist, so I preheated the oven to about 300 degrees, poured the entire rice cake mixture into a casserole dish, topped it with slices of mozzarella cheese, covered and baked the dish for about 25 minutes, until the cheese was completely melted.

 

This wasn't quite like the dish I was trying to emulate - I think I need a return trip to Biergarten to figure it out completely, and next time I want to try briefly pan-frying the rice cakes before adding them to the sauce. But it was pretty good - spicy, tangy and sweet, if a little fishy, I sort of think of this as a Korean version of nachoes. It also kept a really long time in the fridge, so I had leftovers for lunch and dinner for the week.