Tteokbokki

Tteokbokki is a Korean dish of small, cylindrical rice cakes called garae-tteok, most often simmered in a spicy sauce built on gochujang, Korean fermented chili paste, and commonly cooked together with fish cakes, boiled eggs and scallions. A milder, soy sauce based version exists as well, sometimes called gungjung-tteokbokki, or palace tteokbokki, and the dish's earliest documented mention appears in a Korean cookbook from the nineteenth century, though in an unspiced form. The now-familiar spicy version is credited to Ma Bok-rim, who is said to have introduced gochujang-based tteokbokki in 1953 at the opening of a Korean-Chinese restaurant in Seoul's Sindang neighborhood, which went on to become closely associated with the dish. Tteokbokki is widely regarded as Korea's representative street food today, sold at casual snack restaurants called bunsikjip and at street food carts known as pojangmacha, with modern variations that add curry, cream sauce or cheese to the classic spicy base.