Black Sesame Korean Rice Cakes Recipes

BLACK SESAME KOREAN RICE CAKES

Steps:

• Rinse the sweet rice with cold water until the water runs clear. Repeat as many times necessary until the water is clear (about 6-7 times).
• Soak the sweet rice in cold water for 24 hours at room temperature on the counter.
• After 24 hours, strain the sweet rice with a fine mesh colander. Leave it in the colander to allow it to continue to drain for about 30 minutes. Put water in the bottom of your rice cake/mochi machine according to its instructions. There should be a compartment where you put the water under the pot in the machine.
• Place the pot back in the machine, based on your particular machine model. Place all of the sweet rice in the pot.
• Push the "Steam" button on your rice cake/mochi machine.
• While the sweet rice is steaming, boil about ¼ cup of water. We usually do this in a coffee cup and warm the water up in the microwave. Add the salt and sugar into the hot water and mix together well until salt and sugar dissolves. Set aside for later.
• When the sweet rice is done steaming, open the lid and wait for 20 minutes until all of the steam has released.
• After 20 minutes is up, push the "Pound" button on the machine. Intermittently throughout the "pound" process, pour in about ¼ of the sugar/saltwater mixture you made earlier. Wait a bit and pour in another ¼ of the sugar/saltwater mixture. It takes about 25 minutes for the machine to pound all of the sweet rice (the machine we have). Each machine could be a little different and take a longer or shorter amount of time. And you can see if you like it very finely or not.
• Let's toast the black sesame seeds. Place a pan on medium-high heat and dry toast the sesame seeds for about 4 minutes. Make sure to continuously stir the sesame seeds to ensure they don't burn. Just be careful not to burn the sesame seeds, it's harder to tell since they are black already. Remove the black sesame seeds from the pan and place them in a bowl.
• Mix together the toasted black sesame seeds, salt, and sugar to make the outer coating mixture. Pour half of the black sesame seed mixture on a tray and spread it out evenly to cover a large surface area.
• When the sweet rice is completed pounding, pour the sweet rice (now tteok) on top of the black sesame seed mixture.
• You'll notice the sweet rice cake starts to spread out itself and becomes flat.
• Once it has stopped flattening out itself, pour the other half of the black sesame seed mixture on top and spread it evenly.
• Next, you can cut the sweet rice cakes into whatever size you like. We like a square/rectangle shape that's easily grabbable.
• Make sure you dip each piece in the excess black sesame seed mixture to cover each cut side of the sweet rice cakes to ensure it doesn't stick to each other.

KOREAN RICE CAKE STIR-FRY

Steps:

• Combine the shiitakes, garlic, 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sesame oil and the sugar in a large bowl. Add the beef and toss to coat well; set aside.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the rice cakes and cook, stirring to prevent sticking, until softened, about 1 minute. Drain and transfer to a large bowl; toss with 1 tablespoon sesame oil and the remaining 1 teaspoon soy sauce.
• Heat the vegetable oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrot and zucchini; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until just tender, about 5 minutes. Add the vegetables to the bowl with the rice cakes.
• Add the shiitakes and beef to the empty skillet and cook, undisturbed, until browned, 1 to 2 minutes. Flip over to finish cooking the other side, about 1 more minute.
• Return the vegetables and rice cakes to the skillet. Drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon sesame oil and toss well to combine. Season with salt and pepper.