Soya sauce Korean rice cakes

I have leftover Korean rice cakes and don't want to eat them as tteokbokki again. Inspired by the following, I decided to make the soya sauce version - Gungjang tteokbokki 궁중떡볶이 which is supposed to originated as royal court food.

Some recipes cook the garaetteok or tteokbokki tteok first and season with soya and oil before stir frying. Then like japchae where it's tossed like a salad, each veg and meat are cooked separately, everything goes into a bowl and tossed with the sauce. Other recipes just soak the garaetteok/tteokbokki tteok for 20 to 30 minutes in cold water, then stir fry with everything. Being lazy, I chose the later method.

Dry fried spicy version 

1. Beyond Kimchee Gireum Tteokbokki using only chilli flakes for spice.

2. Beyond Kimchi - uses onion, cabbage, chives, and gochugaru

Non-spicy

1. A Day in the Kitchen - uses beef, garlic, onion, carrot, cabbage

2. KimchiMari - uses beef, mushroom, onion, carrot. Garnish with honey in addition.

3. Korean Bapsang - uses beef, mushroom, zucchini, carrot

Ingredients for rice cakes

Rice cake sauce

500g rice cakes, cylindrical 가래떡

1 tbsp soya sauce

1 tbsp sesame seed oil

Method - cooking rice cakes

1. For dry and frozen rice cakes, soak in room temp water for 30 minutes then drain.

2. For fresh and frozen rice cakes, cook in boiling water until they float. Drain.

3. If cooking in water first, marinate with a bit of the rice cake sauce and sesame oil otherwise the rice cakes will stick together.

4. I decided to cook the rice cakes in the pan (see below).

Ingredients 

Marinade

300 beef, sliced into thin strips

3 tbsp soya sauce

1 tbsp mirin or cooking wine

1 tbsp sugar (if not using mirin)

1 tbsp sesame seed oil

½ grated Korean pear

1 tsp sesame seeds (garnish)

Dash of pepper

1 grated garlic clove

Handful of brown or oyster mushrooms (any type). 

Rehydrated shitake mushrooms in ⅓ C water (reserve the water)

1 carrot, sliced into matchsticks

1 to 2 zucchini, sliced

¼ napa cabbage, shredded

½ white onion, sliced

For garnish: spring onions, 1 tsp sesame seeds, pine nuts and more sesame seed oil

Method

1. Slice the drained beef into matchsticks. Marinade in 1 tbsp of sauce for minimum 20 minutes or best overnight.

2. Prepare the veg.

3. In a frying pan on medium heat, add oil and sear the beef until ¾ cook. Remove from heat. 

4. Add more oil and fry the vegetables in turn until cooked. Add 1 tbsp of the rice cake marinade and toss. Remove from heat.

5. Add the rice cakes and the mushroom water, and any leftover marinade sauce. Add just enough liquid to allow rice cakes be ¾ submerged so it can cook (if not previously cooked). Turn down heat and allow to cook uncovered for approximately 5 minutes or until the rice cakes are soft, turning the rice cakes occasionally. Most of the liquid should have evaporated.

6. Add back the veg, toss to combine. Add back the beef, toss to combine.

7. Garnish with a drizzle more of honey if desired, pine nuts, sesame seeds and spring onions.

Buchujeon (Garlic chives pancake)

I have tried various recipes for jeon but have never really succeeded in keeping the jeon crispy unless I used a lot of oil. For the first time ever, I have garlic chives. Based on Korean Bapseng, I added bacon. Although she uses ready made batter, she also suggests a batter with ice cold water.

Unfortunately was cooking indoors so couldn't crisp up the jeon. But the recipe works!

Ingredients

¾ C flour

2 tbsp corn starch

2 tbsp rice flour

½ tsp salt

1C icy cold water

¼ medium onion

1 tbsp light soya sauce

3 ounces garlic chives

½ tbsp gochujang (if not using bacon, use 1 tbsp for spicy finish)

4 slices of bacon, sliced

Dipping sauce

1 tbsp soya sauce

1 tsp vinegar

½ tsp sugar

pinch black pepper

Method

1. Prepare the chives by cutting into 2 inch long batons. Slice the onions.

2. Prepare the batter. It should be thin.

3. Add oil. Fry the veg until charred.

4. Pour on the batter. Make 1 big pancake or smaller ones. Add more oil to the sides if required. Press down to char. Flip and repeat 2 to 3 mins each side.

5. Serve immediately.

Fried fish kway teow

I have been wanting to cook this for the longest time but never had the wok! So finally here it is. I didn't have fish so had to substitute with prawns and fishballs but everything else is the same.

Inspiration from I Cook I Bake I Blog and Meatman. These are the 'wet' versions. Importantly, both recipes cook the fish slices in stock so that they don't break up. Everything is blanched including the noodles. The stock is cooked with wine and soya sauce, thickened with starch slurry and this gravy poured over the noodles. These look bland - who wants to eat boiled fish?

I am attempting the 'dry' version which the fried prawns, noodles, sprouts and chives are all fried. The main highlight is the fried mackerel which I happened to stumble upon in Coles while looking for white sliced fish! 

Ok this is not exactly what I meant by san lor hor fun but it's still stir-fried kway teow!

Haven't eaten curry fried mackerel for 20 years!

The difference the char kway teow recipe is:

1. Coat the kway teow only with light soya and dark soya, no cooking caramel.

2. Marinated the pat dried mackerel in Japanese cooking sake for 10 mins. Pat dry and coat with 4 tbsp potato starch mixed with 2 tsp curry powder. Fry for 7 to 10 minutes, turning occasionally.

2. I fried the prawns (coated in corn starch) individually instead of stir frying, removed, then add the egg and scrambled, instead of sort of doing a prawn omelette. This used the leftover oil from frying the fish.

3. When I fried the noodles, I didn't use any extra oil! Just what was available from the noodles itself and also what had been used for frying the fish, oil, and eggs. Added the drizzle sauce (leftover fish marinade, 1 tbsp light soya, 1 tbsp dark soya, tsp of chicken powder).

4. I added bok choy.

Dry-style Char Kway Teow

I've always wanted to wok. However, my previous wok was unwieldly and difficult to upkeep. I decided to invest in an expensive wok, hoping it would be non-stick with usage and not too much upkeep. However, my carbon steel work has rusted and even though I've restored it, it requires continual upkeep.

Dry-style

Lo and behold, after getting Hexclad, I am finally digging into my throve of recipes to try. I haven't followed any specific recipe but worked around the key principles. My main purpose was not to be too oily (didn't end up so) and not to have the noodle break up too much. 

BONUS wet-style below.

Ingredients (serves 2)

500g fresh kway teow 

3 lap cheong, sliced diagonally

3 eggs, beaten

9 to 10 prawns

8 -9 fishballs, halved or sliced fish cake

small bunch of bu chu (8 to 10 stalks)

handful of bean sprouts (roots removed if preferred)

2 tsp of baking powder

1 tbsp corn starch

2 tsp fish sauce

2 tbsp Dark soya sauce + 1 tbsp (wet)

1 tbsp Light soya sauce

1 to 1.5 tbsp cooking caramel (enough to coat) + 1 tbsp (wet)

5 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 tbsp Hsaosing cooking wine (wet)

1 tbsp rose cooking wine (wet)

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. In a bowl, separate the noodles. Peel off noodle by noodle. Depending on the brand, there might be enough oil to do so, if not, heat up in microwave 1 min to loosen then peel off one noodle at a time. Do not soak in water! 

2. Prepare all the ingredients so that stir frying can be a rapid process. First, coat the noodles with light soya, dark soya and cooking caramel. Toss the noodles gently to coat and be careful not to break up. Ensure well coated and add more cooking caramel if required so the colour is dark enough. Cooking caramel is not salty (unlike soya sauce) and not very sweet so can use more.

3. Next, to marinate the prawns, coat with 1 tsp of baking powder. Leave for 5 minute then wash off and pat dry. Add the fish sauce, corn starch, dash of pepper and mix well. 

4. Beat the eggs with a pinch of salt and pepper.

5. Cut the other ingredients - slice lap cheong diagonally, smash the garlic, clean and trim the bean sprouts. For the bu chu, cut off the white ends and keep them separate. Then, cut the green stalks into thirds.

6. Heat up a wok on medium heat. When heated enough, add 2 tbsp of oil. Add the prawns and leave to cook for 1 minute on one side before flipping. After another minute, toss.

7. Pour the egg on top and leave to cook for about 2 minutes. Once the edges are dry, push the cooked egg curds to the centre of the wok so that the uncooked liquid egg is able to flow out to the edge of the wok and cook. Once prawns and egg are both ¾ cooked, remove from the wok.

8. Without adding any more oil, add in the lap cheong. Once the oil has rendered, add the garlic and fry till aromatic (about 10 seconds). Don't let them burn. 

10. Add the fish balls and stir fry until warmed up. Remove lapcheong, garlic, and fishballs from the wok.

11. Finally, add 2 tbsp of oil and pre-heat. Add the white talks of the bu chu and stir until fragrant. 

12. Add the noodles and toss to coat with oil. Allow to slightly char, turning up the heat if required but don't burn the wok! (Hexclad prefers medium high heat to high heat, when stuff starts to stick).

13. Add the leafy green stalks of the buchu and bean sprouts and toss until well mixed. Add back all the other ingredients and toss to mix well.

14. Remove from wok and serve immediately.

Wet-style (in this style, I omitted Lap Cheong)

WET-style

To make the noodle slightly more saucy and KL style, following changes are required:

1. Add baking powder to the prawns. Leave for 15 mins. Wash and pat dry. Marinade prawns in hsaosing, cornstarch, pepper and fish sauce. After 15 minute, drain the prawns and pat dry. Reserve the marinade and add 1 tbsp rose cooking wine.

2. To the kway teow and rice/Hokkien noodles, add 1 tbsp light soya sauce, 2 tbsp dark soya sauce and 2 tbsp cooking caramel.

3. Follow the same steps to stir fry as per Dry-style but strain out the noodles from the marinade and be careful not to pour the noodle marinade sauce into the wok.

4. After the bean sprouts and chives have been added to the noodles, stir fry for a few minutes. Drizzle the leftover prawn marinade and noodle marinade around the edge of the wok and continue to stir fy.

Glutinous rice

I have tried different ways to cook glutinous rice and stir fry it. I tried the IP version several times but I never got it right. It was always too sticky. I learnt from Meatman recently that there was no need to soak the rice for so long if cooking it in a rice cooker. I decided to give it a try.

The Meatman recipe called for soaking 30 minutes. The ratio was glut rice+ jasmine rice 500g : 500ml liquid (sauces + ingredients).

I decided to try cooking with brown rice without soaking at all but using the burnt rice function on my rice cooker. Instead of following the recipe, I used the finger indication. 

The outcome? The rice was washed very cleanly but was still a bit mushy and yet the brown rice was undercooked. I switched off the electricity and left it to steam on its own in the heat. After 1 hour, the brown rice was finally just cooked but the glut rice was still too soft.

I fried it up with sauce and ingredients (mushrooms, egg, garlic) but it was still a bit too soft and sticky.

In future, I will use less water. The recommended is ⅔C water to 1 cup glut rice.

Seafood vermicelli (woon sen)

I've come across several versions of this, but this seems the easiest. I am not one for Thai vermicelli so this recipe is preferred.

Adapted from Meatman who use black pepper prawns and a claypot.

Ingredients

2 basa fish fillets, sliced

5 to 6 prawns

5 - 6 squid rings

2 cakes of vermicelli noodles

8 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp coriander powder (or fresh roots if you have it)

200ml stock (chicken or fish) or water and stock powder

3 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp Chinese rice wine

1 tbsp Mirin

1 tbsp Japanese cooking sake

1 tbsp fish sauce (divided use)

3 tbsp water

dash of black pepper

dash of white pepper

1 tbsp corn starch

½ tsp black powder, ground

spring onion (to garnish)

Method

1. Rehydrate vermicelli with warm water for 5 - 10 minutes. Do not use boiling water or the noodles will turn mushy. Drain and set aside.

2. Marinate the seafood with half tbsp fish sauce and white pepper, and 1 tbsp corn starch.

3. Marinate the vermicelli with oyster sauce, chinese cooking wine, black pepper, half tbsp fish sauce and stock powder.

4. Preheat a claypot with oil. Fry the garlic and coriander roots if using. Be careful not to burn.

5. Deglaze with water or stock. Add marinated vermicelli and toss to coat.

6. Add cayenne and black pepper and toss to coat.

7. Top with seafood, cover and cook for 2 minutes.

7. Garnish with spring onions.

Christine's recipes also has a more authentic steamed prawn with vermicelli version.

Air Fry Har Jeong Gai (prawn paste chicken)

I have been trying to perfect my Har Jeong Gai for very long now. It started with oven baked but never very correct. While I've almost nailed the taste, the batter has always escaped me.

Now that I have an air fryer, I thought I'd try a new recipe culled from ideas off the internet. I'm not concentrating on the taste here but on the batter.

You can see two wings in the top left corner which I attempted to squash and flatten the batter and 'paint' onto the wing, they looked better

To dredge 

This chicken breading recipe is revolutionary not because it's tasty but because it reduces waste. Basically, 1 egg for every 1 tbsp of flour. I used corn starch or potato starch which I find to be lighter than flour.

To coat

It's 1 tbsp of rice flour + 1 tbsp of oil per drumlet or wing, plus one (for up to 10 wings) or two more (for more than 10 wings) of each for the road because who likes under-battered wings? The rice flour really is the game changer. Using the AF to 'fry' any other batter (other than panko) crumb will not make it crispy but in some cases, can be like eating raw flour.

The trick is to combine the rice flour and oil until it resembles bread crumbs. Then, the dredging slurry of egg and corn starch gives it the liquid that binds the rice flour + oil mixture into a light and dryish 'liquid' batter that just coats the wing and adheres to it. You can try 'painting' it onto the wing (I did) so that it is smoother than just lumpy bits of batter but other than looks, it really doesn't matter.

Then, airfry the wings skin side up at 220 deg C for 5 minutes to bind the batter to the skin. Do not turn or the batter will fall off! 

Turn down to 200 deg C and fry 8 to 10 minutes until cooked (when the skin bubbles). The oil from the skin also helps the batter to stick to the skin.

Feedback

I had originally turned down to 180 deg C for 8 minutes and it came out undercooked. The batter was just cooked but like eating uncooked bread crumbs. After re-cooking for another 2 minutes at 200 deg C, it was perfect. The batter tasted very mealy and more crunchy than crispy, but the clumpy rice batter just tasted like rice biscuit. [Temps adjusted above.]

Other recipes for future:

Noob Cook - no flouring in AF

Spice N Pans - uses baking powder and corn flour in marinade, then coat in plain flour and spritz with oil before AF (which I tried but didn't work?). His temps were 160 deg C for 15 mins then turn and 200 deg C for 3 - 5 mins. I should try these temps next time.