One day while doing our biweekly grocery shopping, my husband came across rice cakes in the freezer section at one of our stops. He made a comment about how he remembered eating them after school at a friend’s house growing up. He said they were in an orange sauce and I remembered seeing a recipe on I Eat Food for something similar.
Fortunately it wasn’t hard to find gochujang, however I’ve had difficulty locating vegetarian fish sauce. Normally dukbokki has fish cakes added, although I think it’s delicious without them, I originally tried cooking dashi in the water for a fishy taste. It didn’t add enough flavor for me to do regularly, but if you need to get that fishy flavor, try using dashi stock.
I’ve discovered that this is best if the rice cakes are just slightly undercooked, so be careful with your cooking times. Gochujang can be found in most stores with a decent ethnic aisle, but it might be labeled “sweet and spicy korean sauce.” It’s seriously good stuff, it’s tasty on a lot of different foods, so if you end up with a giant container of it, it doesn’t have to go to waste. Use it in place of ketchup for dipping or in recipes.
Avocados and Ales 