Rice & Noodles

Vegan Tteokguk

01.18.23

I feel like Lunar New Year came around much faster this year. I’m still barely out of the “holidazz” mode, you know? In any case, big or small, I do love celebrating Lunar New Year. It’s all about the food. The kind of food that I love the most. New Year’s rice cake soup tteokguk, kimchi pork dumplings, delicious gochu japchae with bao bun, a platter of assorted jeon, braised short rib galbijjim. Today, I’m sharing something a little different. I love making traditional tteokguk with a deep rich bone broth or clear beef broth. Mainly because I know it works and it’s going to taste good. But today, I’m sharing a vegan tteokguk. The broth is rich in flavor with kelp and dried shiitake mushrooms. I used two differently shaped rice cakes for interesting textures and did not miss out on the sauteed meatless topping. I enjoyed this very much and it was a nice change from the bone broth one. Make sure to give it a try!

Vegan Tteokguk  2 servings

1 pk of toasted seaweed snack
1 cup flat oval rice cakes (frozen or fresh)
1 cup joraegi snowman shape rice cakes (frozen or fresh)
8 dried shiitake mushroom
2 small pieces (3-4-inches long) of dried kelp
1 small yellow onion
5 oz (150 g) daikon radish, cut 1-inch thick chunks
1 scallion, finely chopped 
1 tbsp soy sauce
½ tsp toasted sesame seeds
½ tsp salt & pepper
1 tbsp cooking oil

  1. Soak rice cakes in cold water for about 30 minutes. In a separate bowl, soak shiitake mushrooms. After about 30 min, drain the water out then squeeze the liquid out from the mushroom by using your hand and cut off the stems that are too tough to eat. Save 4 of them for the stock and finely chop 4 of them for topping. 
  2. Cut yellow onion in half. Save half for the stock (keep the skin on) and finely chop the remaining for the topping. 
  3. On a skillet over medium-high heat, add cooking oil then saute both chopped onion and mushrooms. Season it with a little bit of salt, pepper, and soy sauce. Set it aside.
  4. In a medium size pot, add 5 cups of water, add kelp, mushroom, onion (skin-on), and radish then bring it to a boil. Take out the kelp and boil it for another 5 minutes over medium-low heat. 
  5. Take the remaining ingredients out from the stock then add rice cakes. When the rice cakes float to the surface and are soft, it’s cooked and ready, about 4-5 minutes. Season with more salt if needed.
  6. Serve with sauteed mushrooms, scallions, sesame seeds, and crumbled seaweed snack.

Tip: To make crumbled seaweed snack, add seaweed sheets in a plastic bag, using your hand to crush them in the bag. You can also purchase packaged toasted seaweed crumbs at Korean markets.

Vegan Tteokguk (비건떡국)

DOWNLOAD

Send Download Link To:

Others

Assorted Jeon

01.07.23

Assorted Jeon (모듬전) – yields 12-15 pieces of each, a total of 75 pieces. 
About 8-10 servings

I have a vivid memory of helping my halmoni, grandmother to make jeon in the kitchen. It was usually for special family gatherings like for jaesa to commemorate the ancestors or during holidays like seollal, a new years day celebration. Jeon is usually made with different vegetables and seafood battered in flour and egg mixture and then pan-fried. I can picture myself and my grandmother sitting on the floor, newspapers spread out with an electric grill. She put so much care into how they each turned out. She would tell me in Korean, “얌전하게도 부쳤다”, “You made them so neatly”. Back then, I didn’t think much of those times spent in the kitchen. I miss those times and realized how precious times they were.

4-5 king oyster mushrooms, about 2½-inches tall, and ¼-inch thick sliced
1 Korean pink sausage (fish sausage), sliced
1 medium ae hobak (애호박 squash), sliced
1 large Chinese eggplant, sliced
3-4 medium yellow potatoes, sliced
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup Korean pancake mix flour (부침가루)
½ cup Korean frying mix flour (튀김가루) – optional
2 tsp kosher salt
6 eggs
1/4 cup canola oil (total)
2 red chili peppers, thinly sliced – optional

  1. Slice mushroom, sausage, ae hobak, eggplant, and potato into ¼-inch thick pieces. Pad them dry with a kitchen paper towel.
  2. Add all-purpose flour with 1 tsp of kosher salt in a plastic bag. Add mushroom, ae hobak, sausage, and eggplant separately in batches then shake to coat the dry batter evenly. Transfer to a tray or a bowl. In another mixing bowl, add pancake mix flour and frying mix flour with 1 tsp of salt and 1 cup of water to combine. Add eggplant and potato separately in batches to coat the wet batter evenly. In a small mixing bowl, whisk 6 eggs and set aside.
  3. On a large skillet or flat grill pan, add oil over medium-low heat. Add mushroom, ae hobak, and sausage in egg wash then on the pan to cook. Spoon some more egg wash over the sausage. For ae hobak, place sliced red chili on top if using. Cook it for 2-3 minutes on each side by flipping it over once or twice. Adjust the heat to lower if needed. Transfer to a plate or tray with a paper towel. 
  4. Wipe out the used oil on the pan with a paper towel, and add more oil over medium-low heat. Add eggplant and potatoes that have been coated in the wet batter to a hot grill pan. Cook it for 5-6 minutes on each side by flipping it over 2-3 times. Adjust the heat to lower if needed. Transfer to a plate or tray with a paper towel.
  5. Serve on a large platter or a basket tray with parchment paper underneath.

Tip: The key to making sure the batter doesn’t separate from the vegetables is to keep the vegetables dry before coating them with batter. Salting the vegetables will extract moisture so it is recommended to season the batter instead. You can also not season anything and make soy sauce-based yangyeom jang to serve with it.

Assorted Jeon (모둠전)

DOWNLOAD

Send Download Link To: