Kimchi Meat Soup

Kimchi soup using minced meat with taukwa and mushroom

Kimchi soup with pork sabu sabu and glass noodle

Homemade kimchi.

Ingredients:
2 cups of water
1 clove garlic - minced
1/2 yellow onion - sliced
1 tbsp salted soya bean(豆鼓)
1/2 tbsp korean chilli paste
Kimchi - any amount ( I used homemade)
3 tablespoon minced meat or beef shabu shabu
1 pc of tau kwa(hard beancurd) -cut into pieces
1 pkt Enoki mushroom
2 stalks spring onion -  cut inch length
1 stalk chinese celery - cut  inch length
1 tbsp fish sauce


Method:
1. Put water into a pot and bring to boil. Add sliced yellow onion , garlic, salted soya bean and korean chilli paste.

2. Seasoned minced meat with 1-2 tsp light soy sauce, dash of pepper, 1 tsp sesame oil and 1 tsp cornflour. No seasoning required if use beef shabu shabu.

3. Use spoon to scoop minced meat into small balls and add into the boiling mixture. Add kimchi.

4. Remove the "root" part of Enoki mushroom. Rinse. Then add the Enoki mushroom and tua kwa into soup.

5. Add 1/2 - 1 tbsp of fish sauce and light soy sauce into soup or your desired taste.

6. Sprinkle cut spring onion and chinese celery. Remove from fire and place soup into a bowl and serve with rice.

P.s. : you may add tanghoon /glass noodle in above 4.

You may replaced pork with beef sabu sabu or sliced chicken.

You may like to view also my other post:
1. kimchi
2. kimchi-pancake

Cubed Raddish Kimchi - Kkakdugi

Our kimchi about to finish. Bought a cabbages few days ago. This morning start to wash cabbages and apply the salt on cabbages. While waiting for the water to drain from cabbages, i remembered I left half of raddish in my fridge. Yes, why not? Why not make also raddish kimchi. Log into google and found maangchi raddish kimchi. Very quickly peel the half raddish and chopped into pieces and very quickly made this raddish kimchi.

Find it is much easier to make raddish kimchi than cabbages kimchi. I have made cabbages kimchi for about 8-9years, but,  raddish kimchi is my first attempt. It taste good.

This is rhe simple process:

Ingredients:
1/2 Raddish (since i have only half) peeled and chopped i to cube of 1x1cm
1 tsp sea salt. You can use any table salt
2 tsp white sugar
1 tbsp chilli flake. I bought from Sheng Siong shangtong chilli flake.
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 stalk spring onion - chopped
1 clove of garlic - minced

Method:
1. Rinse raddish. Peel. Chopped into cubes.
2. Add salt and sugar onto raddish. Mixed. Let it sit for 30 mins and you will see water drain out from raddish. Drain and keep the raddish juice.
3. Add chilli flake, spring onion,  minced garlic and fish sauce into raddish. Mixed. Then pour the juice from raddish into mixture. Then transfer into a bottle or container to refridge.
4. You can eat the raddish immediately when it is made. Balance keep in refrigerator.

You may like to view my other post too
1. kimchi

Seafood Pasta

My 2 children love pasta and any kind of pasta. One of their favorite pasta is seafood pasta with scallops. We used to order this seafood pasta from a restuarant.

Since they like pasta, i will cook pasta with different kinds of ingredients. This is one of the way to cook this.

Ingredients:
2 - 4 fresh scallops/frozen scallops
2 big prawns -remove shell and dirt
3-4 pcs swiss brown - sliced/ some shimeji mushrooms
1/4 carrots -sliced
1 clove of garlic - chopped
1 tablespoons olive oil
1 tbsp oyster sauce / black pepper sauce
1/2 tsp chicken stock powder
1 stalks spring onion - cut 1 inch length
1 stalk coriander - just the leaves
Few slice of red chilli optional

100g -125g  linguine/ any pasta
Water for cooking linguine
1 tablespoon of oil
2 tsp salt

Method:
1. Cook the lingunie/pasta  in boiling salted  water with added oil according to packet instructions and drain  thoroughly. Set aside. Note : keep 1/2 cup of pasta water after boiling the pasta.

2. Seasoned the scallops and prawns with some salt and dash pepper. Pan seared scallops and prawns with 1 spoon of oil on the hot pan until both sides of scallops are brown and prawns are cooked. Remove from pan and set aside.

3. In the same fry pan and another spoon of olive oil and fry garlic until fragrance and golden brown.  Remove fried garlic into a bowl, leave  the oil in the wok. Add mushrooms in the wok and fry until soft. Add chicken powder , oyster sauce or black pepper sauce and 1/4 cup of the water from boiling linguine/pasta. Adjust seasoning according to your taste.

4. When the mushrooms sauce is boiled, add the cooked linguine.  Stir well. Last add the fried garlic, spring onion, coriander, sliced chilli cooked scallops and prawns (1). Stir for few seconds. Off fire and turn into a serving dish. Serve while it is hot.

You may like to view my other posts:
1. mushrooms-aglio-olio
2. tang-hoon-prawn-glass-vermicelli
3. pan-fry-black-pepper-udon

Kimchi Pancake

It has been few years since I made this kimchi pancake. This morning my princess request this for lunch before she left house.

I used homemade kimchi and added some chinese cabbages as I am running out of kimchi. In the past i used all kimchi with added seafood. Today just have to go easy.

Usually when  I am being asked "how did you make this?" It is a difficult question for me. I am cook based on my experience and usually without measuring the ingredients nor seasoning. So, to give the exact amount what is used on a dish will be a challenge!


Ingredients:
1/2 cup kimchi( i used homemade kimchi)
1 tbsp fish sauce
1- 1 1/2 tbsp korean hot pepper paste
2 leaves of chinese cabbage chopped
4 big prawns removed shell & cut small pieces and seasoned with salt & pepper
2 stalk spring onions cut into inches
Some plain flour abt 3/4 to a cup
Some glutinous rice flour about 1/4
Some water

Note : Above ingredients measurement is estimation. As I usually do not measure them but base on experience by seeing the colour and texture and amount..etc.
Please adjust to your own desire.

Method:
1.Place all ingredients into a big bowl except water. Then slowly incorporate the water and stir until you see a soft medium thick batter. Water depend on how watery the kimchi is. So need to exercise wisdom :)

2.Use a non-stick pan. Heat up and add a small spoon of oil on  moderate fire. Use a kitchen paper towel to oil the base of the frying pan.  Scoop about 2-3 big spoon on the pan and spread it out to make it thin like pancake.

3.Flip the pancake after few minutes to cook the other side. When both sides are cooked. It is like frying egg omelette.

4. Continue to pan fry the rest.

Serve when it is hot.

You may like to view my other posts:
1. homemade-pancake
2. rice-omelette-pancake

Soft Wholemeal Bread with Oats (Yudane)

When I first learn about no knead bread few months ago, i kept making it. Now that I have a Bread Maker, I have been busy making bread using different method and modified them to find better texture. Of course if I want chewy texture, personally find no knead bread has the most chewy texture.

Last week I have modified the Bread Maker recipe. It yield a very tall loaf. Today, I modified this recipe  further by adding yudane and replace a third of the bread flour with wholemeal flour. And replace 2/3 of tablespoon white sugar with brown sugar. It yield even taller bread. Bread is very soft and fluffy. Original recipe is supposed to be 500g loaf. However, it yield 750g loaf.

This is the short and dense loaf before modification:

Do you see the difference?


Ingredients:
140g Cold Fresh Milk
1 Egg approx 50g**
3/4 Tsp Sea salt (will increase to 1 tsp next round)
1 Tbsp White Caster Sugar
2/3 Tbsp Soft Brown Sugar
3 Tbsp Olive oil
160g Bread flour
80g Wholemeal flour
30g Rolled oats
1 Tbsp sunflower seeds
1 Tbsp pumpkin seeds

1 Tsp instant yeast

**Note: total egg and milk to be 190g. One way is put egg into the cup and add milk to 190g.

Yudane:
60g bread flour
60g 100°C boiling hot water
Mix both to form a dough. Cover. Set aside in fridge for 6 hours. Before use leave at room temperature for minimum 40min or more.

This yudane dough was made earlier based on other recipe. So, it was a little lesser 20%. Next round will increase to 70g flour for yudane and reduce 10g from the master dough.


Method:
Directions using Bread Maker:
1)Place fresh milk, sugar, salt, oil, yudane, rolled oats , wholemeal flour and breadflour into the tin of the bread machine (according to the sequence as stated in the instruction manual of your bread machine). Make an indentation on the flour and add in the instant yeast. Then cover the yeast with some of the flour.
3) I used "Sweet Bread"  "Function 2" with "Light" crust. Although it is a 500g recipe  however I have chosen weight 750g.  My BM indicated it take 2hrs 40mins for sweet bread to complete the whole cycle.
4)When the loaf is ready, there will be a continuous beep sound. Remove tin and shake out the loaf onto a rack and leave to cool. Appro. an hour. Slice it and serve.

You may also like to view my post about no knead bread. It is simple and really easy:
1. no-knead-sandwich-buns
2. no-knead-artisan-bread

Wholemeal & Rolled Oats Bread (Modified Process)

This loaf was done on last Saturday,  2 days ago.
It is adapted from my another wholemeal-rolled-oat-bread recipe. It remains very soft even after 2 days. The slice of bread is so soft that it could bend left and right.

As I was busy on that day and needed also to bake a loaf of bread for sunday's breakfast. So, decided to take a risk to make some slight process changes.

When I reached home at 10pm on Saturday night, I was amazed by the tall bread waiting for me in the Bread Maker with 10 mins more to go.

Yes, this bread has a very soft and fluffy and medium chewy texture. The texture that I like.

What i did was:
I did not leave the yudane at room temperature before I put it into the baking tin. That is, I took it out from fridge and put it straight into BM.

I did not use soft room temperature butter. Instead I used cold hard butter. I put it in between the liquid and flour.

The reason I did this was because in the delay timer, the cold hard butter and cold yudane that were straight from refrigerator will be 'warm up' to room temperature as it sit there in the tin for extra 2hrs plus before the BM start to work.

So, this will also ease my mind for fresh milk to be left in room temperature for so long.

In other word, instead of letting the yudane stay at room temperature for at least 40mins before putting into baking tin, I put it into the tin but not starting baking cycle. Similarly, I used cold hard butter to keep the fresh milk cold. The delay time will give time for butter to soften eventually. This is my humble change in process.


Ingredients:

150g Cold fresh milk
30g  Cold butter(I used salted)
3/4 Tsp salt
1 3/4 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp milk powder
150g Bread flour
50g Wholemeal flour
20g Rolled Oats
1 Tbsp Sunflower Seeds
1 Tbsp Pumpkin Seeds

1 Tsp Instant yeast

Yudane:
60g bread flour
60g 100°C boiling hot water
Combine flour and boiling water to form a dough. Keep in refrigerator overnight. For more details on yudane, please refer to these yudane-method

Sweet bread mode 1 light crust  750g. 2.40hr

Method:
1.In the BM baking tin, add cold milk, salt, sugar, cold yudane, milk powder, cold hard butter, rolled oats and flour in sequence. Make an indentation on the flour and add in the instant yeast. Then cover the yeast with some of the flour. Add sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds.

2. Set "Sweet Bread". Set delay time 5hours 30mins.*** Set "Light" crust, weight 750g. My bread maker take 2hrs 40min.

3. When the bread is ready, there will be a continuous beep sound. Remove tin immediately and shake out the loaf onto a rack and leave to cool. Appro. 1-2 hour. Slice it and serve.

***I set 5 hours and 30mins as I went out to run errands. This recipe is good if you are running errands or can't be at home to put the ingredients as usual process.

You may like to view my other posts :
1. soft-bread-with-rolled-oats
2. pumpkin-bread
3. wholemeal-cranberry-and-walnuts-bread
4. wholemeal-hokkaido-milk-loaf

Soft Bread with Rolled Oats

Late night freshly baked. Just took out from my BM. I am surprised to yield such tall bread. This is the  basic 500g soft bread recipe that came with the Mayer MMBM12 Bread Maker. I did some modification on the ingredients and omitted the enriched bread powder. There isn't tangzhong nor yudane used in this loaf. I didn't use the expensive hokkaido milk either. (One carton of hokkaido can buy 2 carton of normal fresh milk). Yet it yield such beautiful and tall bread that is bigger and taller than 750g.

Happy!

Updates on 10 Dec 2015:
Woke up this morning to slice the bread. It is soft and chewy. Though, it is not as soft in compare with those loaves with added yudane. But still it is a very soft bread that it can bend up and down without breaking. Next round I shall try this recipe with yudane or tangzhong. 😊

This is the loaf..... and I like the texture. It is chewy and soft and fluffy. The kind of bread that I like ~ chewy texture. Thank God for the bread maker that made such wonderful bread. The "soft bread function 1" produces good bread. 😊 I have fresh and nice bread everyday. 😊

Conclusion: No need an expensive BM. Mine is a BM which cost below S$100. I got it at promotion. Cost me $88. It is not the BM that matter but the recipes. With good recipes, you will yield good bread. Cheers!

Just to show you the loaf before modification:

See the great different?

Please visit my facebook page Catherine's Cooking Journal

Ingredients(Original Main Dough/Base Dough):
200g Cold Fresh Milk (orig 190g water)**
1 egg approx 50g**
1 tsp Sea salt (orig 1/4 tsp salt)
1 2/3 - 2 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp olive oil (orig 1 3/4 tbsp)
300g Bread flour (orig 330g high gluten flour)
30g Rolled oat(can be replaced by flour)

1 tsp instant yeast

Additional :
1 tbsp Rolled Oats(optional) (will omit this next round)

**Note: total egg and milk to be 250g. One way is put egg into the cup and add milk to 250g.

Method:
Directions using Bread Maker:
1)Place fresh milk, sugar, salt, oil, breadflour, and rolled oats into the tin of the bread machine (according to the sequence as stated in the instruction manual of your bread machine). Make an indentation on the flour and add in the instant yeast. Then cover the yeast with some of the flour.
3) I used "Soft Bread"  "Function 1" with "Light" crust. Although it is a 500g recipe  however I have chosen weight 750g.  Thank God that I set 750g. My BM indicated it take 2hrs 55mins for soft bread to complete the whole cycle.
4)After 1st beep, i add one spoon of rolled oats.(optional).
5)When the loaf is ready, there will be a continuous beep sound. Remove tin and shake out the loaf onto a rack and leave to cool. Appro. an hour. Slice it and serve.


You may be interested in these recipe too
1. wholemeal-rolled-oat-bread.
2. soaked-rolled-oats
3. savoury-rolled oats porridge
4. wholemeal-bread-using-yudane-method

You may like to view my post on no knead bread. It is simple and yet soft and nice:
1. no-knead-artisan-bread
2. no-knead-sandwich-buns

28Dec2015 updates:
Used this recipe replaced 30g of bread flour with organics wholemeal flour and added 2 tbsp milk powder. Set mix dough function x 1, 25mins. I mixed with the cover opened for about 10-15mins. Then set sweet bread 2 hrs 40mins, light crust & 750g weight.

The loaf is extremely tall even with added wholemeal flour. No yudane, no tangzhong, no whipped cream but it is soft and light.

Yesterday I made this same bread and same recipe and replaced 30g bread flour with superfine wholegrain flour. I achieved a short bread. I think the organic wholemeal flour yield better bread.

Updates on 7/Jan/2016 (Fermented overnight dough):
My sister introduced to me to add fermented overnight dough to existing recipe. That is, any kind of recipe.
See this is the results, very super tall bread which hit the ceiling. It is extremely soft and the bread aroma is extremely fragrance. I am very satisfied with the loaf. Texture is soft even with added superfine wholegrain and rolled oats. A few times I tried adding superfine whole grain flour to recipe, it was disappointing. However, yesterday with this new method, the bread is fluffy soft and full of aroma and it taste good.

Fermented Dough(Starter/Poolish):
Ingredients:
100g superfine wholegrain flour ( you can use bread flour or wholemeal or rye or spelt)
100g water
A pinch of instant yeast

Fermented dough

Method:
1. Place all the ingredients in a plastic container with a lid that can be tighten.  Mix them well together. Close the container with the lid. Leave it in the refrigerator(NOT freezer) overnight or at least 12hours. I kept mine for 48hours as I didn't bread the next day after making the dough.

2. When preparing to bake bread, take out a portion of the overnight dough and add it into the recipe. Any recipe.

3. I added 90g (or any amount as my sis suggested 50-100g) of the fermented overnight dough into above soft bread with rolled oats recipe. And I also added 2 tablespoon of milk powder. You can add any amount range from 50-100g fermented overnight dough. No need calculation. Straight forward method. No hazzle. I like this method. It is easy.

4. I set soft bread function light crust. Weight 750g Whole cycle is 2 hours 55mins.

This is the modified recipe with added fermented overnight dough:

Ingredients(yield 1000g):
200g Cold Fresh Milk
1 egg approx 50g**
1 tsp Sea salt
1 tbsp white sugar
1 tbsp soft brown sugar( u can use white sugar)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp milk powder
90g fermented overnight dough(cold from fridge)
300g Bread flour
30g Rolled oat (can be replaced by flour)
1 tsp instant yeast

Additional 1 tbsp bread flour (if dough is too wet)

Please put in the ingredients according to the sequence. Set soft bread mode 1. Light crust. 750g. My bread overflow. It yield probably 1kg.

As the Bread Maker start to work and all ingredients formed into dough, approximately 5 mins. I saw the dough was a little wet. Added a tablespoon of bread flour.

As for the remaining fermented dough, add another 50g of wholegrain superfine flour and 50g water and mix them together. No need add yeast. Just flour and water. Store in refrigerator for next use.

I may have to look into the quantity of ingredients in my next bread making to "solve" the hitting ceiling issue. Although it was a good problem but still need to solve :)

Happy Baking.

Updates on 9/Jan/2016 with Fermented Dough:
Today I have reduced the main dough to suit my BM as my BM max is 750g loaf. This is the updated recipe to cater for 750g BM.

Ingredients(yield 750g):
137g Cold Fresh Milk
1 egg approx 50g**
1 tsp Sea salt
1 tbsp white sugar
1 tbsp soft brown sugar( u can use white sugar)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp milk powder
90g fermented overnight dough
220g Bread flour
30g Rolled oat
1 tsp instant yeast

With the above reduced ingredients, it still yield a tall bread. With fermented method, we actually uses less flour yet yield tall and softer, very fragrance and favourful bread. And if you are able to achieve tall bread is a bonus. Find the bread texture is different after adding fermented dough and it give chewy and soft (holey)bread texture. Just yesterday my church's sermon talked about God is Holy and people are Holey (hole-y). God said "You must be holy because I, the LORD, am holy"(Leviticus 20:26/1Peter1:6). The preacher said people are hole-y, full of holes. So whatever he received, it will leak because of the holes. The love that the person received will leak away. Holes are the bitterness and unforgiveness  in ones' life. This person can come before God to seek God and let God patch up those holes. God, who is the Creator of you and me, can renew, revive and restore a person. And Jesus is the way. It is something we can ponder upon, food for thoughts. Bible said Jesus is the Bread of Life - the Spiritual Bread that everyone needs. Everyday we are baking bread. But this is earthly physical bread that can only fill our physical body but not able to fulfill the spiritual need or what the soul is hunger for.
Haha...talking about "holey" bread, lead to think of the sermon.  Back to bread. The fermented dough method produced "holey" bread. Holey bread has alot of pockets holes in the bread and therefore make the bread fluffy and chewy. It is unlike the airy bread where you feel you are biting air. Whereas this texture though is holey(hole-y), full of holes but it give a chewy texture. The texture I like. The bread remain soft and moist for few days. Unlike those without fermented dough, bread become stale very quickly.
Basing on these few days of baking, I find the fermented dough added to the main recipe improved the texture.

A friend from a baking group who adopted this method that is added fermented dough with other recipe of her own and did not yield tall bread. So if you are experiencing not so tall bread, perhaps to look into the main dough which you use. Encourage you to use a recipe which you have baked before and have confident as your main dough. By doing this you will be able to do troubleshooting if the bread disappoint you.

Note:
This recipe is very easy. You only add on fermented dough into a base recipe(main dough) that is an existing recipe and DO NOT require any calculation. It is straight forward method that is similar to using a recipe and added on some nuts, etc..
The only thing you need to be mindful is if you are using a 1000g max BM, choose a 750g recipe as the base or main dough and add on the fermented dough. As the added fermented dough will yield a loaf that is 1000g or above and also improve the texture. Therefore, for 750g max BM, choose a recipe that is 500g as base or main dough. As for those BM max is 500g, you will have to add minimum amount of fermented dough and expect a very tall loaf that might hit the "roof".

The above pictures is to show how tall the loaf is.

The rest of the step remain no change. That is, set soft bread mode 1. Crust "light". Weight 750g. Time taken 2hrs 55mins.

Updates on 10/Jan/2016:
A friend from a facebook group asked for recipe for her BM10 500g capacity bread maker. I have NOT tested this recipe on my own. Basically, i have reduced the quantity by 1/3 from my original base recipe. Happy baking.

Ingredients (yield 500g with fermented dough):
116g Cold Fresh Milk (that is milk + egg =166g)
1 egg approx 50g**
2/3 tsp Sea salt
2/3 tbsp white sugar
2/3 tbsp soft brown sugar( u can use white sugar)
1 1/3 tbsp olive oil
1 1/3 tbsp milk powder
50g fermented overnight dough
200g Bread flour
20g Rolled oat
2/3 tsp instant yeast

Method :
Set soft bread mode 1. Light crust. Weight 500g. Start

Wholemeal Rolled Oat Bread (Non-Refrigerated Yudane)

This is fluffly and soft bread using rolled oats and wholemeal flour. To achieve the soft texture, I used fine wholemeal flour. It is a modification from another of my earlier wholemeal-bread post which using yudane dough(日本汤种).

Initially I have no intention to write this recipe. However, a friend was interested and asked for recipe.

2 days ago, I did this same Wholemeal Rolled Oats loaf using refrigerated yudane. Refer more details about yudane in earlier yudane post.

This time I tried the non-refrigerated yudane method. Which is from this Hand-Made Bread book (手工QQ面包).  That is, after mixing flour with 100°C boiling water, i covered the yudane dough and left it on the table counter for few hours. It was approximate 3 hours+/-.

I like using yudane method as i can achieve a tall fluffy soft loaf with very little flour used. Basing on my BM given recipe, 500g loaf needed 330g flour. However, this yudane method only uses total flour 280g. That is dry flour 220g plus 60g flour use in yudane.

With only 280g flour, it yield a tall loaf like 750g or more.

If you have a good recipe, you can try yudane method. That is take 20% of the total flour to make yudane.

Calculation:
Orginal recipe  : 280g flour and 210g milk/water

20% of 280g is approx. 60g flour for yudane
Yudane flour  = yudane water
100°c boiling water for yudane is 60g

Modified recipe :
220g (280-60) flour and 150g (210-60)milk/water
Yudane 120g apro.(60g flour + 60g water)

There is a slight different in the 2 yudane loaves. Refrigerated yudane seems to yield slightly taller loaf by a cm than non-refrigerated yudane.

This loaf used non-refrigerated yudane

This loaf used refrigerated yudane. You may check on my earlier post on refrigerated yudane.

They are both equally soft and fluffy. No different in texture.

Ingredients:

150g Cold fresh milk
30g Soft butter(room temperature)
3/4 Tsp salt
1 3/4 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp milk powder
150g Bread flour
50g Wholemeal flour
20g Rolled Oats

1 Tsp Instant yeast

Yudane:
60g bread flour
60g boiling hot water
Mix both to form a dough. Cover. Set aside and leave at room temperature until lukewarm. Approx 3hours+/-

Sweet bread mode 1 light crust  750g. 2.40hr

Method:
1.In the BM baking tin, add milk, salt, sugar, yudane, milk powder, butter, rolled oats and flour in sequence. Make an indentation on the flour and add in the instant yeast. Then cover the yeast with some of the flour.

2. Set "Sweet Bread", "Light" crust, weight 750g. My bread maker take 2hrs 40min.

3. When the bread is ready, there will be a continuous beep sound. Remove tin and shake out the loaf onto a rack and leave to cool. Appro. 1-2 hour. Slice it and serve.

You may be interested in these recipes too:
1. wholemeal-bread-using-yudane-method
2. wholemeal-cranberry-and-walnuts-bread
3. wholemeal-hokkaido-milk-loaf
4. soaked-rolled-oats

Topokki/Tteokbokki/Korean Rice Cake

Watching korean drama inspired me to DIY topokki at home. Few years ago I had tried using china dried rice cake for this dish when I couldn't get korean rice cake. However, there is a different in texture. I prefer the korean rice cake as it is soft and chewy even soaked in sauce for a long time. And it shape and texture will still remain good and nice. 

Nowadays, it is very convenient and topokki korean rice cake and the red hot pepper paste are found in almost all local supermarkets.

Play back few years ago, perhaps like 8 or 9 years back, I would have to travel to town or Square Two in Thomson to buy the korean rice cake and the korean chilli paste(gochujang) from a korean supermarket. So, I will stock up when I was in that area.

About 5 or 6 years ago, I started seeing Korean supermarket at most of the shopping mall. So, buying topokki became more convenient. But still in selective places.

Now, you can find topokki and gochujang in almost every supermarket. I no longer need to stock up but just buy them as and when I need it. :)

I have created a new page in Facebook, you may view this recipe also in  my Facebook Page : Catherine's Cooking Journal .

Ingredients (serving for 1 person):

100g Topokki/Tteokbokki/korean rice cake

2 - 3 big prawns (remove shell & dirt)

1 Tbsp Korean chilli paste/Gochujang(you may add more if you like more spicy)

1/2 Tbsp fish sauce

1/2 Tbsp light sauce

1/2 Tbsp sugar (you may add to 1 tbsp n you may replaced with golden syrup)

Some cabbages - cut

1/4 carrots - cut into thin strips

1 cup of water ( you may reduce if you like more sticky)

1 stalk spring onion cut in 2cm length

Picture of ingredients :

Topokki/Korean Rice Cake

Korean chilli paste/ Korean Hot pepper paste (Gochujang)

Method:

1. Wash prawn. Remove shell and dirt. Seasoned with some salt and pepper and put aside.

2. Take about 100g of Topokki/Korean Rice Cake, rinse and set aside.

3. Boil water in a pot over stove. Add korean chilli paste , sugar, fish sauce and light sauce. Stir until the chilli paste is incorporate and dissolve with water. 

4.When mixture is boil, add prawns, carrot, cabbages and topokki/korean rice cake.

5. When topokki is soft and chewy and prawn is cooked*, add spring onion. Off fire. Remove from pot and pour into serving plate and serve hot.

Note: you may adjust the seasoning to suit your own taste. The korean hot pepper paste (gochujang)is quite salty on its own. This paste is made of fermented soybean. It is just like miso paste which is salty. Therefore, seasoning need to adjust accordingly.

You may replace prawns with fish cake or minced pork.

* Note1 : Do not overcooked prawn. You may remove prawn from pot first if the tokpoki is not soft yet.