#FoodTuesday #writingprompt

In our K-dramas, people often eat tteokbokki, a dish made with rice cakes (garaetteok). Last year, I learned how to make my own garaetteok from Maangchi, and I did, and it was good. But it isn’t quick and easy, so it’s not something I would do often. OTOH, Korean grocery stores sell honkin’ big packages of it, and Somebody got taken to a Korean grocery as part of Her Birthday Present.

In other words, I bought a honkin’ big package of frozen garaetteok.

Part II: JayC has packaged tteokbokki bowls like ramen bowls, only with rice cakes instead of ramen noodles. They have two levels of spice: one with a happy chicken mascot and one with the chicken mascot with its eyes streaming tears. Even the happy one is too spicy for me. (Not for Chickie, though. She likes it.)

So, having a honkin’ big package of garaetteok and my own ingredients, I decided to make myself some low-spice tteokbokki.

Reader, I failed.

I had a jar of rose spaghetti sauce, so I was headed for rose tteokbokki. I fried some mushrooms, added onion and garlic and ginger, added the sauce and a little water to thin it a bit, added the soaked and defrosted garaettok, and Bob should have been your uncle.

Where did I go wrong? Well, I decided it HAD to have SOME spice, so I squirted in some gochujang. I squirted in gochujang till the world don’t look level. This little chicken had copious tears running down her feathers. But I ate it. I ate it all and drank the broth. When I told Sara she said, “THAT’S tteokbokki, then!”

A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: a painful but delicious dish

MA