Ddukboki "Carbonara"
The past summer, I had the opportunity to visit Anytime NYC, a Korean tapas restaurant, and I was utterly blown away by their "Super Creamy Ddukboki". The ingredients were: gochujang, heavy cream, rice cake, candied cocoa nibs, and Grana Padano. Not only was the flavor amazing, the texture of the chewy rice cake, combined with the crunchy cocoa nibs and creamy sauce was a combination made in heaven. I was inspired by this and tried to make a similar dish. The name "carbonara" is kind of arbitrary because realistically speaking it doesn't really bear that much resemblance to carbonara. This is still a work in progress, as my candied cacao nibs ended up tasting very different from Anytime's and didn't quite add the textural contrast that I was looking for. Nevertheless, the dish was pretty good and I hope to be able to master this dish and get something closer to Anytime NYC's version.
Active Time: 20 min
Total Time: 25 min
Ingredients
> rice cake
> garlic (2 cloves), green onion
> milk (1/2 cup), heavy cream (1/2 cup)
> parmigiano reggiano
> bacon (1 slice)
> gochujang (1 tbsp)
> salt, pepper, oil
> (optional) candied cacao nibs.
Instructions
1. Soak the rice cake (maybe around 3/4 pound or so) in warm water. Let sit until ready to use.
2. Cut a slice of bacon into small bits. Cook it in a wok over medium-high heat until the bacon is very crispy.
3. Finely chop garlic and add it to the wok, cook it for a minute or two. Add the green onion, chopped into 1.5 inch pieces. Then drain and add the rice cake to the wok, and stir-fry for a minute or two.
4. Add milk, heavy cream, and gochujang. Let simmer on medium heat until the rice cake is chewy and tender, stirring occasionally. Adjust for seasoning with salt and pepper. Pour everything out onto a deep plate.
5. (Optional) Add some candied cacao nibs on top.
6. Top the ddukboki with some grated parmigiano reggiano. Serve and enjoy!
Notes/Tips:
> It is important that you soak the rice cake before using it! Just like my other rice cake dish, this helps the rice cake absorb water and become more chewy in the final result.
> Realistically, most of the steps that I take in this recipe are pretty unnecessary. You could make this exact same dish with just rice cake, garlic, milk, heavy cream, and gochujang (eliminating all the random steps in between), and it would still taste very good. These additional steps were mostly because I was inspired by Anytime NYC's "Super Creamy Ddukboki".
> I didn't include the recipe for the candied cacao nibs because I couldn't quite get it to work exactly as I was hoping - it ended up being a lot more ... chewy and sticky and didn't quite have the crunchy brittle texture. The taste was also a touch too strong. You could also try using very caramelized, finely diced onions.