Toby Scott (Courtesy Hardie Grant). Toby Scott (Courtesy Hardie Grant)
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In her new cookbook, Pocha: Simple Korean Food from the Streets of Seoul, author Su Scott unpacks one of her favorite street foods: an oil-seared version of Korean rice cakes known as gireum tteokbokki. This dish is believed to have appeared in Seoul after the Korean War in the early 1950s, but also has roots connecting it to the royal court delicacy known as gungjung tteokbokki, which did not include gochugaru (Korean red pepper powder). In Scott’s rendition, the rice cakes are seasoned with perilla oil and soy sauce and cooked over low heat until they’re simultaneously crispy and chewy, then finished with sweet honey and spicy chili crisp.
If you are using frozen tteok, soak them in cold water for 10 minutes to soften first. You can find tteok, gochugaru, and perilla oil in many Asian grocery stores.
Adapted with permission from Pocha: Simple Korean Food from the Streets of Seoul by Su Scott, published by Hardie Grant Publishing, June 2024.
Featured in “This New Cookbook Takes You on a Street Food Crawl Through Seoul” by Jessica Carbone.
Yield: 2
