Making Rice Cake

Rice cake (떡, ‘Ddok’) is eaten year round in Korea. You’ll see it every day on the streets here in the form of Ddokbokki (떡볶이, Spicey rice cake). But rice cake comes in more forms than just the delicious spicy one. Rice cake is often served as a traditional desert as it can be flavored to be slightly sweet. Rice cake is also given as a traditional gift during the holiday of Chuseok (추석, Korean Thanksgiving). I was recently given the opportunity to make rice cake in the traditional way.

How to make rice cake:

Things you need:

• ·         2 giant wooden hammers
• ·         2 cups of rice (by this I mean take 2 cups of uncooked rice and cook it. You’ll have roughly a gallon of rice.)
• ·         A giant wooden slab
• ·         Water
• ·         Red bean powder (for sweet flavoring)

How to do it:

     1.    Get the tip of the hammer wet
2.       Slam the hammer down really hard on to the cooked rice
a.       It works if you have you’re in unison with your partner. Counting “1. 2. 1. 2,” may help making the rice cake easier and faster for you.
3.       Make sure to keep the tip of the hammer wet. When the rice sticks to the hammer, remove the rice from the hammer and dip in water.
4.       Add water occasionally to keep the rice from sticking to the board.
5.       Keep hitting the rice until it a large mass of solid rice
6.       Put the rice on to metal trays covered in the red bean powder (not only does this add flavoring, but it keeps the rice from sticking together.
7.       Cut the rice into bite-sized pieces (don’t be liberal with the powder or these bite-sized pieces will stick together

In the end, you get enough yummy rice cake for 6 people. Make sure to eat the rice cake within 2 days of it’ll start to go bad.