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Gungjung Tteokbokki (Royal Court Rice Cakes in Soy)

Gungjung Tteokbokki (Royal Court Rice Cakes in Soy) reads umami 6.7, sweetness 5.0 and richness 4.7 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Korean main, about 1 hr 2 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 6.7 · Sweetness 5.0 · Richness 4.7 · Salinity 4.6 · Allium 4.1 · Nutty 4.0 · Fruity 3.7 · Funk & Ferment 2.7 · Floral 2.3 · Earthy 2.3 · Herbaceous 2.1 · Sourness 1.3 · Warm Spice 1.3 · Bitterness 1.2 · Heat 0.6

What's in it (15)

Time & effort: about 1 hr 2 min (12 min active) · effort: medium

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 58.8 kcal, 4.5 g protein, 3.2 g fat, 3.3 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains egg — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (6 steps)

  1. Soak the cut rice cakes in warm water for 20 minutes if they are not fresh, until they bend without cracking, then drain. Fresh garaetteok from a rice cake shop needs no soaking at all.
  2. Whisk the soy sauce, pear juice, sugar, garlic, half the sesame oil and the black pepper together. Toss the beef matchsticks and shiitake in half of this and leave them 20 minutes; use the other half for the rice cakes.
  3. Toss the drained rice cakes in their share of the seasoning and leave 10 minutes. Seasoning them before they are cooked is the point of this dish: rice cakes are bland and dense, and a sauce added at the end sits on the outside.
  4. This is not the red street-food tteokbokki. Gungjung tteokbokki predates it: there is no gochujang and no chile at all, the seasoning is soy, sesame and pear, and it is a dry stir-fry rather than a stew. The chile version appeared in Seoul in the 1950s and became the more famous of the two, but this is the older dish and it is served as a banquet plate, not from a griddle at a market stall.
  5. Get a wide frying pan hot with the remaining sesame oil, add the beef and shiitake and stir-fry 2 minutes until the beef has just lost its colour. Add the carrot and onion and stir-fry 2 minutes more.
  6. Add the rice cakes with any seasoning left in the bowl and stir-fry 4 to 5 minutes over medium heat, keeping everything moving, until the cakes are soft, chewy and glossy but not sticking to one another. Add the scallions in the last 30 seconds, then turn out onto a platter and scatter with the egg diamonds and sesame seeds. Serve warm, not scalding, because a cooling rice cake goes hard fast.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.