I recently went to the Asian supermarket to buy some rice noodles, and happened to see some frozen rice cakes. For days afterwards, they sat in my freezer because I had no idea what to do with them!
After intense discussions with a colleague, I decided to make a soup. It went well…mostly.
The first thing I did was look for Tteokguk recipes. Tteokguk is a traditional Korean rice cake soup served on New Years.. I think I got this right, but please let me know if I didn’t!
I liked this recipe by Seonkyoung Longest: https://seonkyounglongest.com/tteokguk/. I actually also love watching everything else she makes on Facebook, especially the love videos!
I had to modify it quite a bit since I didn’t have half the ingredients on hand and since we’ve been eating mostly vegetarian. For context, my partner has recently started thinking about humane treatment of animals. However, being almost broke means you can’t always buy meat that’s ethically sourced. Hence the vegetarianism.
Anyway, I started a broth first and kept it going for about 50 mins or so. It was simple, but packed a punch. Once the broth was done, I moved on to cooking the rice cakes. I boiled them in the broth itself. The starch in them thickened my soup a bit and added flavor.
I tasted one rice cake and it seemed cooked. I plated up the soup with julienned cooked eggs, some radish and green onions. It turns out that the rice cakes weren’t cooked completely. Sigh…
I cooked all the ones we did not eat in boiling water for another 10 mins and they were perfect! So, I would recommend soaking frozen rice cakes for at least 15 mins for thawing and then boiling for another 20. Mins were thick cylinders, which is why it took so long. If you use the sliced ones, they’ll be done faster. If nothing else, they should be cooked for more time than the package says.
Here’s the recipe for the soup!
Ingredients
For the soup
- 2 stalks green onion
- 2 inch piece of ginger
- 1 star anise
- 1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns
- 1 small bunch cilantro
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Rice cakes 10-12 pieces
- Water 1/2 gallon
For the garnish
- 2 eggs separated
- 2 red radishes
- 1 green onion
- Salt and pepper
Method
- Cut the green onions into two parts and bruise them slightly
- Add the peppercorns to a mortar and pestle and grind into a coarse powder
- Separate coriander stalks from leaves.
- Bruises stalks lightly with the back of your knife. Save the leaves for some other recipe
- Cut the ginger into large pieces and bruise lightly
- Add enough water to a heavy bottomed pot and turn heat on to medium.
- Add the green onions, peppercorn powder, cilantro stalks, ginger and star anise.
- Cover and boil for 45-50 mins. Check periodically and add water if required
- In the meantime, soak the rice cakes in room temperature water for at least 15 mins
- Remove cover and add soy sauce, salt and pepper.
- Drain the broth and bring back to a boil on medium heat
- Add the rice cakes and cook for 15-20 mins or until quite soft
- Heat a non stick pan on medium heat.
- Beat the egg yolks and egg whites in separate bowls with salt and pepper
- Add the beaten egg yolks to the pan and cook on low heat. Make sure the bottom doesn’t get burnt.
- Repeat the same with egg whites
- Roll the cooked omelettes and slice thinly
- Slice the radishes thinly and finely chop the green part of the green onion
- Add the cooked rice cakes to the bottom of a bowl.
- Top with the broth as needed
- Arrange the garnishes on top and enjoy!
This recipe seems like a lot of work, but it really isn’t. You just need time to infuse the broth with all the flavors. It’s a wonderfully light recipe for a weekday.
I do hope you’ll try it out and let me know how it goes!!!
Everything and Nothing 