Potential fire in your mouth with this rabokki!
“Buldak Bokkeum Myun” translates directly into fire chicken stir-fried noodles. These instant noodles (ramen) were all the rage a few years ago inKorea and have taken YouTube by storm with hundreds of eating challenge videos. They are still immensely hot .. pun intended (hehe). My husband thinks I’m crazy for being able to eat one packet and actually ENJOYING them while his mouth goes on fire as he gulps for cups of water (which I think makes it worse).
So, what could be a better ramen (instant noodle) to use for a easy rabokki recipe? Side note, rabokki is essentially tteokbokki with the addition of ramen noodles – (tteok)bokki + ra(men) = rabokki. Tteokbokki is a very popular Korean street food that is often seen on the streets of Korea or in little hole in the wall restaurants near schools. It’s made with tteok (chewy rice cake) and is stir-fried over high heat most often in spicy red sauce but has many variations like this spicy carbonara tteokbokki. I’ve been craving some seriously spicy food so a tteokbokki utilizing this spicy fire instant noodle caught my eye on YouTube by Kimi. Thanks YouTube suggestions! Tteokbokki is very simple to make but this becomes even easier with using instant noodles and the sauces!
(fiercely red! yums)
The buldak bokkeum myun instant noodles have a particular flavor to the spicy sauce but this flavor does not sing through in this dish and preserves the usual delicious rabokki flavor instead. The sauce essentially helps to heaten up the firey spice level to the rabokki without adding the specific flavor and just the hotness. Without being told this sauce was in the dish, I wouldn’t be able to point it out clearly BUT you might be too distracted by the spice level. To me, it was perfect and not overly spicy but my husband to the side started to eat it with white rice (not usual for tteokbokki) to drive the heat level down in his mouth. Why wouldn’t you want to have a spice party in your mouth? We don’t see eye to eye on this.
If you’re scared of the heat level, there may be a few ways to go around it like using only half the packet of the instant noodle red sauce, or decreasing the gochujang or gochugaru amounts evenly. But if you love spice, I hope you are like me and just enjoy it as is. Or, maybe with even more gochugaru or two packets of the sauce! Go wild!
| Servings |
2 people
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Ingredients
- 1/2 lb (250 g) cylinder shaped rice cake
- 4 sheets flat fish cake eomuk (어묵) or o-deng (오뎅)
- 1/3 onion
- 1/6 cabbage
- 1/2 large green onion
- 2 spicy peppers jalapeno, serrano etc of your choice
- 2 dried red peppers
- 2 hard boiled eggs
- optional: kimmari (deep fried seaweed rolls) i just heated up some frozen ones
Sauce Ingredients
- 1 red sauce packet of buldak bokkeum myun instant noodles
- 2 Tbsp korean red pepper paste (gochujang)
- 2 Tbsp korean red pepper flakes (gochugaru)
- 1 Tbsp rice syrup can substitute with sugar or honey
- 1/2 Tbsp honey
- 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
Ingredients
Sauce Ingredients
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Instructions
- Mix the sauce ingredients together and set aside.
- Get the sideline ingredients ready. Slice the onions, large green onions, peppers and cabbage. Cut the fish cakes into triangles. Hard boiled eggs are a must for tteokbokki - get the eggs ready (boil for about 10 minutes).
- Place the sauce in a medium sized pan and heat over medium heat for about 1-2 minutes. This will intensify the flavors of the sauce.
- Add in 500 ml (2 cups) of water into the sauce. Begin to place in the other ingredients from step 2. Place the cabbage in first and stack in the other ingredients - except the hard boiled eggs.
- As the sauce broth begins to simmer, add in the ramen noodles. (My photos show these being added slightly late - should add in a bit early). Tip: If the broth reduces too quickly and becomes too sticky before all the ingredients are cooked through, add more water in intervals of 1/4 cup. As the tteokbokki stirfries the sauce my begin to reduce again but do not fret.
- Top with hard boiled egg, some kimmari (fried seaweed wrapped rice - optional), and the flakes from the instant ramen bag (forgot to add these for the photo).
Lovely recipe! I always love to read other people make ddukbokki because there is always something different to others especially yours. I hope you can have a look and comment mine too here: http://nyamwithny.com/nyam-recipes-ddukbokki/ I always find it good to add sesame oil and sesame seeds.
What would you say is the first thing your fork or spoon goes for when you go for ddukbokki? Mine is the fishcake!