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Hi! And welcome to the very first episode of EAT YOUR KIMCHI! I'm your host Martina.
Today, we're going to be making a very traditional and very easy street food. It's called dokbokki.
And if you go to any street stall on any corner, normally in North America you have hot dogs
being sold, and we'd say we really need to get some street meat. Here in Korea we say
"I need to get me some dokbokki!" And dokbokki is awesome! It's basically like a rice cake
that's been formed from a rice paste, like a glutinous, and they chop it up and they
roll it...all these other things, and they're little rice sticks, and they're cooked in
a hot pepper paste. So today I'm gonna show you how to make that. But first, your ingredients!
So the main ingredient, the first thing you're gonna need is dokbokki. Now this isn't what
dokbokki normally looks like. This is star shapes, there's hearts in here, and there's
other cool little things. The reason we got this one was we thought it was really pretty
for the show. But I will show you later on a picture of what normal dokbokki looks like.
It kinda just looks like a log that's been cut. But this is specialty dokbokki. This
is gonna cost you between 2000 won and 3500 won. So, roughly, two bucks, to three dollars
and fifty cents, which is pretty darned cheap for a meal. And something like this will well
feed two people. In fact, usually we have leftovers. And if you see my husband, he's
a big guy. So, leftovers from this little package means you're serving at least three
people.
Okay, the next ingredient: gigantic green onions. Sure, they may not have these type
in North America, but, any type of green onion will suffice. Basically I usually use one
of these, and so I guess in North America you're going to need and entire full stalk
of all of them. Which is going to set you back usually 79 cents.
And the last big main ingredient is going to be fish cakes. Not everyone's a big fan
of fish cakes. Umm. Simon and I happen to really enjoy them. Basically, it's just pollack
that's been crushed, and it's just been mashed together to form kind of a little rectangle
here, and this is used for kimbap; it's used for spaghetti; it's used for everything you
can think of. And ours, uhh, this is my favorite, this comes with, it's a vegetable fish cake,
so it has carrot and it has green onion already inside of it. And you're just gonna slice
this up. This goes for around...Simon (three bucks) three bucks! And this is for a three
pack, so each pack comes with about four times three, so you're looking at about 12 slices
and this'll last you for a long time. Okay! On to the spices.
The most important ingredient is going to be hot red pepper paste. Also known as gochujang
paste. Now this is basically just a paste that's been reduced down so you can see it's
very thick, very sticky. And basically it's just, uhh, it's gonna be the entire brunt
of the entire meal, because it's very spicy. And when everything reduces down, this is
gonna be the major taste. The second major taste is going to be also another hot flavor.
This is hot pepper powder. So from here it kinda looks like chilli powder, or paprika,
or something like that, but it isn't. It's really just kind of like a crushed, hot chilli.
Then we just have some basics. I've got some salt, got some pepper; and the last ingredient
(you're not gonna need a lot of this), this is just soy sauce. So any type of soy sauce
should be able to do for that because you'll only need a little bit of it to go around.
Ahh, so that's about it. Let's get cooking!
So what I've done is I've boiled, or began to boil, about two cups of water. Now this
can depend on how thick you like your dokbokki. So I happen to like my dokbokki to be a bit
thick, I like the sauce to kind of get stuck and kind of roll off, almost like the consistency
of a thick soup, like a butternut squash soup. But some people like their dokbokki kind of
watery. So, if you like your dokbokki watery, almost like an actual soup sauce, then you
want to go for maybe two and a half to three cups of water. But, like I said, personally,
I like mine to simmer down, and become a little bit thicker. So I have two cups of water here
boiling away. In the meantime I cut up about one cup of green onions. Slice em whatever
what you want to. Usually when you get them at the stands you get big fat pieces of onion
that have been just kind of sliced haphazardly; same thing goes here. We're not looking for
thinly sliced or perfection. Also a matter of taste, so if you don't like onions, then
go lighter on the onions. And I've diced up one and a half squares of fish cakes, and
what I've done is it's about the size of half a finger in height.
So my water's come to a boil. Now I'm gonna add the red pepper paste. I’ve already
added one tablespoon here already and I’m gonna add the second one, and one thing about
it is that it’s very irritating in the sense that it won’t break down.
So you really gotta mash it in there. Logically it should just dissolve, but for some reason
it doesn’t. Now, two tablespoons is because I like spicy food. If you don’t
like spicy food, you probably shouldn’t be eating dokbokki to begin with. But if you
want to give it a try anyways, go for maybe one tablespoon. You could always add a littlebit
more afterwards. Okay. So I’m gonna let that break down. Now you basically throw
in the rest of the ingredients. So we want the onions to soften, so we’re gonna
toss those in. Okay. You wanna add about a tablespoon of hot pepper powder (That’s
a mighty big tablespoon). We like it hot. I’m gonna add about half a teaspoon
of salt. Okay. Pepper to taste. So I did about half a teaspoon of pepper. And then last,
I’m gonna add the soy sauce. Now what you’re looking for here is basically
I want this to reduce a bit. I could add the dokbokki now if I wanted to, but the dokbokki
is gonna cook in about three to four minutes. So, do I want it to look like this in three
to four minutes, or do I want it to be thicker? That’s up to you, so if I want it to
be thicker I’m gonna let this boil down a bit, then add the dokbokki so then
that way it will reduce along the way.
Okay, and last, I’m gonna add the soy sauce, and I’m looking for about a
tablespoon of soy sauce. Now, to be honest, you don’t even taste the soy sauce.
So it obviously does something, but it’s not a prominent flavor. So don’t feel
tempted to dump in a lot of that. The fish cakes - you’ll also notice - I haven’t
added yet. That’s because they’re already cooked, but they absorb the moisture
quite easily, and then they get really puffy and overcooked and kind of soggy, so you could
either toss those in at the last minute, you could put them in on top, even when everything’s
cooked, or if you want it to be really really soft, you can toss it in now. But I prefer
mine to be to have a little more of a bite to it, so I’m gonna wait till later
on. Okay, so we just gotta let this reduce, and I’ll see you back when we add the
I almost forgot! You wanna add about a teaspoon of sugar in there, so I’m just gonna
sprinkle that in on top. You see it’s sticking to the steam. So this is, uh, reduced
a bit, and I think I’m ready to add the dokbokki. You might be wondering why I’m
cooking this in a frying pan and not in some kind of a bowl. Well, what happens is it’s
usually a very shallow dish to begin with. On the street theyend up cooking in kind of
like a flat, kind of like a frying area where you might do some eggs. So the same thing
kind of goes here, and the reason why is that it helps the sauce to reduce, I think, a lot
faster. I’ve done it before in a pot and for some reason it just didn’t
turn out the same way. Okay. And in we go. So you want to make sure the dokbokki is completely
submerged in the hot sauce. And this is gonna take about three mintues or so to cook down.
And the consistency for the sauce like I said is up to you, but what you have to be careful
with is that as soon as you add the dokbokki, it can overcook quite quickly, so what you’re
looking for is really kind of alden...aldente pasta kind of thing. So when you touch it
with a fork or a knife, it’s gonna be kind of soft on the outside, but a bit
chewier on the way through. That’s normally how we like it. If you overcook it
it becomes quite puffy, and then it’s almost soggy, like you can bite right through
it very easily. This is supposed to be a bit chewy, so you want it to be chewy and not
soggy, which is why I was saying before you want it to reduce earlier rather than later
because if you want it to reduce once the dokbokki’s in, you’re gonna
end up with sooooggy dokbokki.
And here is our final creation: dokbokki, in all it’s glory. You can see here
that I just topped up the bowl with some fresh green onions, also helps make the onions inside
look a little bit fresher, and pairing this with, of course, some kimchi. And a good drink
pairing with this is a nice cold glass of milk to stop the burning. And there you have
it: dokbokki made easy!