Why Your Tteokbokki Doesn’t Taste Like Korean Street Food
The Biggest Difference Between
Homemade Tteokbokki and Korean Snack Bar Tteokbokki
Obviously,
the reason homemade tteokbokki and Korean snack bar tteokbokki taste different
is because the cooking methods themselves are different.
Before looking at exactly what makes them different,
let’s start with a quick summary.
First,
the taste of tteokbokki is determined by the red pepper powder.
These days, thankfully, it is hard to find truly bad-quality red pepper powder,
but how much you use
and how well you balance saltiness and sweetness
are still very important.
The chili powder must be fine—finely ground chili powder.
My ratio is
Red pepper powder : Saltiness : Sweetness
Red pepper powder 1–1.5 : Dashida 1 , MSG 0.25 :
Sugar 0.33 , Corn syrup 0.66
(If you use generous amounts, it would come closer to
1.5 : 1.25 : 1.)
These measurements are based on a standard tablespoon.
And when I taste the final dish,
if something seems to be missing,
I add a little more salt.
There is a clean, distinct kind of saltiness that only salt can provide,
so I always add at least a small amount.
The recipe is not absolute,
so adjust it according to your own taste.
It is difficult to judge the exact seasoning while the sauce is still
in its concentrated form.
You can properly check the seasoning only after the tteokbokki is finished.
This is because the rice cakes need to puff up,
then the heat needs to be reduced to the lowest setting,
and the sauce needs to simmer down.
The flavor changes quite a lot during this process.
So you may need three or four attempts to find the ratio that works for you,
but essentially,
add the water, rice cakes, green onions, and seasoning paste all at once,
bring it to a boil once,
and when the rice cakes
start to puff up,
reduce the heat and simmer for a few minutes,
then turn off the heat and finish.
It’s a really simple dish.
The key is simply finding the seasoning ratio that works for you.
So let’s take this simple tteokbokki and explain it in a little more detail.
The rest gets very, very long,
so to keep you from leaving,
I’ll start with an ultra-simple recipe.
Tteokbokki: Ultra-Simple Recipe
1. Stock
Most Korean snack bar tteokbokki uses fish cake stock as its base.
Of course, some places use plain water,
but in those cases, the seasoning itself often already contains
a lot of flavor.
So should you make fish cake stock yourself?
If possible, yes.
A proper stock is usually made using anchovies, Korean radish, MSG,
fish cakes, and other ingredients.
The fish cakes themselves also release additional umami into the stock.
The difference between using this kind of stock and simply using water
is much bigger than you might expect.
Especially if you want that distinctive Korean snack bar umami flavor,
it is difficult to ignore the difference that the stock makes.
If making stock is too much trouble,
there is a simple alternative.
Use anchovy Dashida.
If you have ever made Korean fish cake soup,
you probably know that there really isn’t much to it.
The ingredients you can see are usually
Korean radish in the anchovy stock,
green onions,
and sometimes even crab.
But in reality,
the main flavors of fish cake soup come from
anchovy stock,
the broth created by cooking the fish cakes,
and soy sauce.
So when you are already putting fish cakes into your tteokbokki,
you can supplement the flavor with anchovy Dashida
and bring it a little closer to that “restaurant-made” taste.
A typical ratio is roughly
Dashida 2 : MSG 0.5 ~ 1
More specifically,
Beef Dashida 1 + Anchovy Dashida 1 + MSG 0.5 ~ 1
You can reduce the MSG slightly if you prefer.
It’s a combination.
When you mix these together,
you can create an umami base that is surprisingly similar
to what you find in Korean snack bars.
Honestly,
trying to recreate Korean snack bar tteokbokki without these
umami seasonings is quite difficult.
Trying to recreate a similar flavor while deliberately avoiding
the ingredients used by the restaurant whose tteokbokki you enjoyed
would be a little strange, wouldn’t it?
2. Just as Important as How Much Seasoning Gets Into the Rice Cake: Sauce Thickness
There is a common saying that poorly cooked tteokbokki tastes bland inside.
That’s true.
But even a well-cooked rice cake
doesn’t suddenly become filled all the way through with seasoning.
The inside will still be mostly white.
In reality,
the thickness and texture of the sauce make a much bigger difference.
Think about it realistically.
How much seasoning can actually penetrate into the rice cake?
Will that small amount really make a bigger difference
than the flavor created by a generous layer of sauce coating the outside?
Well,
I don’t think so.
If you make the sauce slightly thicker
so that much more sauce sticks to each rice cake,
then naturally,
every bite will give you a richer and more concentrated sauce flavor.
That’s why the consistency of tteokbokki sauce is more important
than you might think.
3. How Do You Make Tteokbokki Sauce Thicker?
The first ingredient is corn syrup.
Corn syrup is quite important.
A good ratio is roughly
Sugar 1 : Corn syrup 2
I’ve heard of people using only corn syrup for sweetness,
but I’m not sure.
When you cook,
sometimes you need the kind of sweetness that only sugar can provide,
and sometimes you need the clean, distinct saltiness that only salt
can provide.
I use both quite often.
The second method is starch slurry.
This isn’t something everyone uses.
But when you think about it,
there isn’t really a reason not to.
Why?
Just think naturally about why Korean snack bar tteokbokki becomes thick.
At snack bars,
the rice cakes are continuously simmered in the tteokbokki sauce.
During this process,
some starch gradually comes out of the rice cakes,
and that starch mixes into the sauce,
naturally making the tteokbokki sauce thicker.
This starch plays a definite role in creating the thick, rich sauce
characteristic of Korean snack bar tteokbokki.
But when you’re making one or two servings at home,
it’s difficult to keep simmering the rice cakes for a long time
like a snack bar does.
So what can you do?
Simply add a small amount of starch slurry yourself.
I don’t recommend adding dry starch powder directly to the tteokbokki.
First dissolve the starch in water to make a starch slurry,
then add it to the tteokbokki.
And the timing matters too.
It’s best to add it during the final stage,
when the tteokbokki is almost finished.
Jajang sauce is also thickened with starch slurry at the end.
Can you see the connection between the thickness of jajang sauce
and the texture of Korean snack bar tteokbokki sauce?
For one serving,
I recommend using no more than one small coffee spoon
of starch slurry.
Adding more starch does not make it tastier.
Starch is simply a supporting tool for controlling the thickness
and texture of the tteokbokki sauce.
The third, and most important, factor is the cooking process.
I said earlier that it’s fine to put everything in at once
and start heating it from cold.
That’s right.
It doesn’t really matter.
I’ve also seen people write about how you need to add sugar first
because of osmosis and things like that,
but honestly,
I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about from the beginning.
Snack bars don’t do it that way either.
To make a thick tteokbokki sauce with a well-balanced flavor,
you need to start with what may seem like quite a lot of water
(number of rice cakes × 10,
so 200 ml for 20 rice cakes)
and then,
after the rice cakes have puffed up,
reduce the heat and allow the sauce to simmer down.
If you taste the tteokbokki immediately after reducing the heat
once the rice cakes have puffed up,
you may think,
“Oh, I ruined it.”
The rice cakes may seem overcooked and have lost their chewiness,
the seasoning hasn’t penetrated much,
and the rice cakes and sauce may seem completely disconnected.
It may taste like a complete failure.
That’s normal.
You are only halfway through.
A dish that tastes good halfway through
can actually become too salty by the time it is finished.
So keep going.
Simmer the sauce over low heat.
It will take a few minutes.
At this point,
if the seasoning is reasonably balanced
and the sauce has reached the consistency you want,
but there is still too much liquid,
this is where you can use the starch slurry mentioned above.
After simmering,
turn off the heat,
and taste the tteokbokki again.
You should notice that the rice cakes have returned closer
to their original size.
The texture will also have recovered considerably.
Now you can adjust things.
If there was too much red pepper powder,
reduce it next time.
You can also adjust the sweetness and saltiness.
If the balance seems fine
but something still doesn’t taste right,
the problem is probably the red pepper powder.
It’s not you.
It’s not me either.
It might simply have a strong raw pepper smell.
In that case,
mix the red pepper powder with the liquid ingredients first
to make a seasoning paste,
then refrigerate it for a day or two
before using it.
The raw smell of the red pepper powder may become milder
during this process.
To Summarize
The reason homemade tteokbokki doesn’t taste like Korean snack bar tteokbokki
is not because you are missing some secret sauce.
The biggest differences come from a flavorful stock,
seasonings that provide plenty of umami,
and the sauce texture created with corn syrup and starch.
Many people focus on how deeply the seasoning penetrates into the rice cake.
But in reality,
the thickness of the sauce and how well it clings to each rice cake
have a much greater influence on the final taste.
Pay attention to just these few things,
and you can make homemade tteokbokki taste much closer
to the kind you remember eating at Korean snack bars.
In the end,
I believe the key to recreating Korean snack bar tteokbokki
is not one secret ingredient,
but umami and sauce texture.
Anchovy Dashida, Corn Syrup, and Chili Powder
Anchovy Dashida
If you’re looking for the anchovy Dashida mentioned in this article,
you may want to consider the product below.
Once you have one in your kitchen,
you’ll probably find yourself using it much more often than you expected.
Sometimes, even after adding beef Dashida and MSG,
the flavor can still feel like it’s missing something.
That’s when anchovy Dashida can really make a difference.
A 1 kg pack is quite a lot, so I recommend choosing a smaller size that suits your needs.
Corn Syrup
There is a clear difference between corn syrup and allulose.
However, if you want to reproduce the flavor as closely as possible, I recommend using corn syrup.
I’ve never seen a tteokbokki restaurant use allulose, and honestly, I don’t think I ever will.
Chili Powder
The chili powder used in tteokbokki must be finely ground chili powder.
Fine chili powder is not the type typically used for making kimchi, but it is also used in jjamppong and is very commonly mixed with regular chili powder when making spicy Korean stir-fried dishes.
If you cook Korean food, you’ll definitely find plenty of uses for it.