Korean Street Food: Tteokbokki, Hotteok, Gimbap and More

Bunsik: the cuisine of the snack stands

Koreans group the quick, cheap dishes from street stalls and small snack bars under the word bunsik (분식). Originally it meant foods made from flour, and today it includes rice cakes, gimbap, fried snacks and instant noodles. The combination is typical: several people share a portion of tteokbokki, and gimbap and fried vegetables come with it to dunk in the red sauce.

For a bunsik night at home, plan two savory dishes, one skewer and one sweet snack. The recipes below are sorted by type.

Savory and spicy

Tteokbokki

Korea's best-known street dish: cylindrical rice cakes in a sweet and spicy sauce of gochujang, gochugaru, sugar and broth, with fish cake and scallions. The recipe Tteokbokki takes 20 minutes. With instant noodles in the same sauce, it is called rabokki. The guide Upgrading Instant Noodles collects more ideas for the noodle packet. Buy the rice cakes refrigerated or frozen at an Asian grocery store. Soak hard tteok in warm water for 10 minutes before cooking.

As a guideline for two to three servings: 500 g tteok, 400 ml water or anchovy broth, 2 tbsp gochujang, 1 tbsp gochugaru, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp soy sauce, two sheets of fish cake cut into triangles and two scallions. Bring the sauce to a boil, add the rice cakes and fish cake and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring, until the sauce turns glossy and thickens. A hard-boiled egg per person goes with it.

Gimbap

Rice rolls in nori, filled with spinach, carrot, pickled radish, omelet and ham or fish cake. Unlike sushi, you season the rice with sesame oil and salt instead of vinegar. Instructions: Gimbap. At the stall, they come cut into slices to take away. Allow one sheet of nori and 150 to 200 g of cooked rice per roll. Cut the fillings into long strips as long as the nori sheet is wide and lay them side by side on the lower third. Roll up firmly with a bamboo mat and brush the outside of the roll with sesame oil.

Twigim

Korean tempura made from sweet potato, vegetables, shrimp or nori rolls filled with glass noodles. The batter is thicker and crispier than the Japanese kind. Recipe: Twigim.

Another bunsik dish is sundae, a blood sausage with a glass noodle filling that cooks steam and serve in slices with salt and chili.

Skewers and broth

• Eomuk: sheets of fish cake, folded and threaded onto long skewers, simmer in a broth of radish, kombu and dried anchovies. You drink the broth from paper cups alongside. You can find eomuk sheets frozen at an Asian grocery store.
• Dak Kkochi: chicken skewers with scallion, grilled and brushed with a sweet soy glaze or a spicy gochujang glaze.
• Sotteok Sotteok: sausages and rice cakes alternating on a skewer, pan-fried and coated with a sweet and spicy sauce.

Fried and from the pan

• Korean Corn Dog: sausage and mozzarella on a stick, dipped in yeast batter, rolled in panko and deep-fried. At the end you roll it in sugar and add ketchup and mustard. The cheese pulls long strings when you eat it hot. For the potato hot dog variation, press small potato cubes into the batter before frying, and they turn into a crispy shell.
• Gilgeori Toast: toast browned in butter, filled with an omelet of egg, cabbage, carrot and onion, cheese and ham, seasoned with sugar and ketchup. The classic breakfast on the way to work.

Sweet snacks

• Hotteok: yeast dough pancakes with a filling of brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped nuts. Pressed flat in the pan, the sugar melts into syrup. Eat them carefully, because the sugar syrup in the filling will burn your tongue.
• Bungeoppang: fish-shaped waffles with red bean paste. You need a matching waffle mold, available at an Asian grocery store and online. Hodugwaja, small walnut cakes, work on the same principle.
• Gyeran Bbang: oval egg bread, a slightly sweet batter with a whole egg in it, baked in the oven.
• Dalgona: caramel of sugar and baking soda, pressed flat and stamped with a mold. You cook it in a ladle over the flame.

Ingredients, planning and allergens

For most recipes you need a small basic stock: rice cakes (garaetteok), fish cake sheets, gochujang, gochugaru, nori for gimbap and mozzarella for corn dogs. Rice cakes and fish cakes are at an Asian grocery store in the fridge section or frozen, and gochujang and gochugaru are also in well-stocked supermarkets. Frozen tteok keep for several months, and opened packs in the fridge for a few days.

For four people, a bunsik night with 500 g tteokbokki, two gimbap rolls, eight eomuk skewers and one round of hotteok is enough. Prepare gimbap first, because it tastes good at room temperature. Cook tteokbokki and eomuk last, and fried snacks belong on the table right away.

Allergens: Fish cakes contain fish and often wheat. Gochujang usually contains wheat and soy. Corn dogs, hotteok and gyeran bbang contain gluten, egg and milk, and hotteok also nuts. Sesame is in gimbap and many sauces.

Common mistakes

• Tteok cooked too long: Rice cakes turn soft after 8 to 10 minutes and fall apart after that. Add them to the sauce only when it is already simmering.
• Corn dog batter too thin: It drips off the stick. The batter must be as thick as heavy pancake batter.
• Oil too cold: Below 170 °C, twigim and corn dogs soak up fat.
• Gimbap overfilled: The roll bursts when you cut it. A sharp, dampened knife helps.