Korean-Style Spicy Rice Cake (dduck-boggi)

Dduck-boggi is a Korean street food. The beauty of a street food is that we should go low-end at every element of a dish. Usually, we use dried-anchovy stock to make this. But, making fish stock to make a street food? I don't think so.

But, without the stock, we need to use MSG. But, that is not acceptable. Then, what should we do? I can't eat something not tasty.

I have found a perfect solution.

Ingredients (for two persons)
rice cake                         200g              
green onion                     1-2
cabbage (sliced)             2 cups           
water                               2 cups
fish sauce                       1 tablespoon 
red pepper flakes            2 tablespoon
maltose syrup                 1 tablespoon 
apple vinegar                  1/2 teaspoon
fish cake                          2 sheets       

1. Stir-fry green onion and cabbage on a preheated pan. Make sure that the pan is hot enough and there is not much liquid coming from vegetables. 

If there is liquid from vegetables, the temperate of the pan doesn't go beyond 100 degree C. Then, there will not be enough caramelization or Maillard Reaction - which are developed at 120-180 degree C. 

2. Pour fish sauce on the bottom of the pan - NOT on vegetables. 

Fish sauce has protein and sugar in it. When protein and sugar are cooked at 120-170 degree C, they create explosive chemical reactions, which develop hundreds of different flavors - this is what they call "Maillard Reaction" or "browning reaction". 

If we pour fish sauce over liquid, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to develop flavors from it. We will just get the Umani (savory) flavor from fish sauce. But, it is not enough to make the sauce flavorful.  

3. Deglaze the pan with 2 cups of water. When we poured fish sauce on the pan, it got stuck to the pan and left brown bits. We need to melt these in water - this makes our dduck-boggi sauce tasty without stock or MSG.


4. Put rice cake in the pan. Put the lid on and wait until rice cake gets soft. 

5. Pour red pepper flakes. Then turn the heat to a lower level and wait until dduck-boggi sauce thickens. 

6. Taste it. Even though we have no sugar yet, it should be sweet from caramelization of green onion and cabbage. Put 1 tablespoon of maltose to make the sauce glossy. 

7.  Add 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar to take care of any fishiness from fish sauce and fish cakes.

8. Enjoy the dish with a cut of boiled egg.

I have a Korean maekbansok egg on my plate. I did this to make a point. This egg has also gone through the Maillard Reaction and that is why it is brown.

It is cooked at much lower temperature than 120 degree C though. It seems that each food has a different temperature to reach the browning point or the high pressure built under the egg shell during the cooking process helps increase the temperature in the shell.