I bought this Tteokbokki (Korean Spicy Rice Cake in English) for $3.79 from Trader Joe’s. It attracted me because American marekt selling Korean foods is kind of weird tho. I wonder if they have Korean worker in their R&D team. They are actually selling a couple of Korean dishes. I will review them as well later.
By the way, Tteokbokki is a traditional Korean dish. Actually, a traditional Teokbokki was not red and spicy. People who worked in the court making Tteokbokki with soy sauce and beef mainly. They were not even spicy at all and it was only for nobles at that time. The spicy red Tteokbokki was developed in 1953 and started as a street food.
The Tteokbokki is usually cooked with red pepper paste (called Gochujang in Korean), soy sauce, sugar or corn syrup, fish cake green onions, cabbage, and etc. Depending on the county, some people also put black peppers, ketchup, or mustard. I have never tried with ketchup or mustard, but adding black peppers is always good. I don’t recommand adding ketchup or mustard on the Tteokbokki to be honest. It is weird tho haha. I highly recommend eating it with boiled egg because it is usually spicy. The egg catches the spicy hurting. Most tranding flavors of Tteokbokki are black bean paste and Rose (cream with tomato paste).
Get bakc to the point. Ingredients of the Trader Joe’s Tteokbokki are included Rice cakes, Water, Brown sugar, Red pepper, Soy sauce, Scallions, Red pepper paste, Ssame seeds, Modified cornstarch, Salt, Garlic powder, Black pepper, Onion powder, and Sesame oil. Pretty normal version of Tteokbokki. Watch out, they contains soy and sesame allergens!
Now let’s go through the cooking instruction of the Trader Joe’s Tteokbokki!
1. Add 1 cup of water and sauce to a pot.
2. Bring to a boil over medium high heat and add rice cakes. Simmer over medium heat and stirring occaionally for about 8-10 minutes.
3. I served with green onions, cheese, and elvan stone boiled eggs. The elvan stone boiled eggs are more tander and no eggy smell. I will post how to make them later for sure. They are so good!
Conclusion, a taste of the Tteokibokki was not that good to me to be honest haha because it was too sweet and too mild spicy. I felt it tastes like a dessert (It should not be!). However, their price was pretty cheap comparing with Tteokbokki is being sold about $8 at least at Korean markets. The taste of one that from Korean markets has better taste. I would recommend trying both and comparing would be super fun! I will come back with other dishes.
Overall rating:
Taste ⭐⭐ out of 5
Price ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5
Spicy ⭐ out of 5
Sweet ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5, Too sweet:(
Thank you for reading:)