Dobukki AKA Spicy Rice Cakes

Today both my Mama and Aunty asked the recipe for this dish when I posted it on Facebook. 

I have loved this snack ever since I tasted it. It is mildly spicy and a little bit sweet but delicious nonetheless.  

Yesterday, I was suddenly inspired to make it (aka 'forced' to make it by my housemate Fatin). And it is super duper easy~

Dobukki

Serving: 2-3 persons

Ingredients

• Rice cakes - A handful (you can put as much and as little as you want, I put about 2/3 of the frozen package or around 200g worth into mine today). I am too lazy to make it from scratch, I bought it frozen from a local specialty store in Batu Pahat. You can actually find this at a lot of supermarket these days, especially those with an isle dedicated especially for Korean food. If not, you can actually make it. It is quite easy, it is just a litttle bit time consuming if you want something fast. I bought mine for RM12 for 300g.
• Gochujang (spicy hot pepper paste) - 2/3 cup. Again this amount is quite versatile, if you want more sauce (like me), then put a bit more. To be honest, this sauce is not spicy. At all. It is mild in flavour. Again, this is widely available in our local supermarkets. I found mine at the same shop in Batu Pahat, but again, I also saw this in Aeon, Giant etc.
• Chilli powder - 2 tablespoons. This is mild to medium heat. I love spicy food, so usually I add more. Adjust according to your preference. More chilli power = spicier your dobukki will be,
• Anchovy stock - Actually, it is a kelp/anchovy stock, but I forgot to get kelp, thus I just use anchovies to make my stock. This is super important coz if you just add gochujang into boiling water, well, it is less tasty as using a base stock. You can substitute with any stock such as chicken, beef or vegetable stock. Koreans love their fish-based stock in a lot of their dishes and I love it too.
• Sugar - 1/2 tablespoon. I tried to not put sugar in any of my dishes, especially savory dishes, but the gochujang make the sauce taste a bit bitter without sugar, so I add a bit of sugar. You can substitute sugar with corn syrup. Maple syrup or honey have distinctive taste, so if you add those, beware that it can alter the taste of this dish.
• Spring onion - 2-3 stalks. The base with whitish part, you can chop it and put into the sauce while the leafy green can be used as garnish. 
• Fish cakes - I LOVE LOVE fish cakes. I put as many rice cakes as my fish cakes, that is how I love my fish cakes. For this part of the ingredient, you can substitute with basically anything, chicken/fish balls, sausages, any meat tbh. Fish cakes absorb the flavour of the sauce more, so I love to put fish cakes into mine.
• Water - 4 cups

Anchovy/Kelp Stock

1. Boil water with 10 anchovies and a small strip of dried kelp (around 5-10cm) for around 10 minutes, you can opt out the kelp if it is not available in hand (like how I did it today hahahaha)
2. Remove the anchovies and kelp from the stock

Instruction

1. Add rice cakes, gochujang, chilli powder, sugar into your boiling anchovy stock
2. Then add your spring onion and fish cakes once the sauce is boiling
3. Once the sauce thickens (it will coat the back of your spoon), you can switch off the gas and voila! It is all ready! 
4. Garnish your dobukki with spring onion. Or seaweed. Your poison of choice tbh

Bonus: Since I love the sauce, I usually make more, so you can add instant noodles (or ramyeon) or rice and mix them all up once all other ingredients (the fish and rice cakes) are finished. If you want more, you can also add cheese. Any cheese, sliced sandwich cheese or gourmet cheese.

Serve hot! It is yummilicious hot and spicy!