A Momofuku spin on tteok

David Chang, owner of the Momofuku restaurants and writer of the cookbook, is Korean American and describes his memories of having tteok bogi as a child. 

Tteok bogi is a big favorite of Jake's, so it was a natural sidedish to go with the ssam I was cooking last night. Chang writes about his grandfather's method of pan roasting the tteok, so I decided to give it a try.

I parboiled the frozen tteok (though, I imagine if you were using fresh, you could skip this), then scraped the burnt pork off the pan and tossed in the tteok with a little oil spray.

The results? Jake and I both decided this kind of tteok isn't always for us - but would definitely be welcome from time to time. The tteok gets crisp on the outside, but are still wonderfully chewy on the inside. The grit from the pan adds a little smoky flavor to the dish.

Pan-roasted tteokbogi, inspired by the Momofuku cookbook. I made the sauce the way I usually do (diverging from Chang's recipe here) in a separate, small saucepan and poured it in at the end of the dish, then allowed it to thicken.  Bring 2c water (use the water you par-boiled the tteok in, to capture any starch that may still be left - it will thicken your sauce nicely), 2-4 TBS gochuchang (Korean red pepper paste), 2 tsp sesame oil, 1/2 TBS sugar to a boil, then reduce to about 1 1/2 c. It should coat the back of a spoon and drip slowly, more of a syrup than a total liquid.