As someone who watch Kdrama, K-variety shows, of course I came across this dish in both K-drama when the actors ate at food booth by the road in cold winter, drinking soju to accompany the spice from this dish, stress from work, broken heart from dramatic love stories down the throat, and in variety show when guests consider this a traditional, easy-to-cook homemade dish.
Besides octopus with taste of ocean, juicy pork belly (fat..), I also like the chewy rice cakes. Recently I found rice cakes with cheese in them (YASSS!!), I decided to throw rice cakes in as well and turned out to be a great add on!
QUICK TAKEAWAYS
- cook octopus only for 10-30secs, cooking for too long will make the texture hard
- do not need to add oil while pan frying pork belly as its own fat will be able to supply the frying of this dish and maybe another stir frying dish!
RECIPE
- 8-10 small octopus (frozen or fresh, clean before cooking)
- 0.5-1lb pork belly slices
- rice cakes
- half onion / 2-3 shallots cut into slices
- jalapeno / pepper slices
- Sauce:
- 2tbsp Gochugaru / Korean chili powder (fined)
- 2tbsp soy sauce
- 1tbsp sesame oil
- 1tbsp oyster sauce
- 1tsp sugar
- 2tsp honey/mirin
- 1tbsp Gochujang / Koran chili paste
- ground pepper
- 8 cloves ground garlic
STEP 1: clean octopus; take rice cakes out from fridge to defrost; cut pork belly into~0.5cm thickness; cut half onion or 2-3 shallots into slices, cut jalapenos into slices
STEP 2: Mix all sauce ingredients together
STEP 3: cook octopus in boiling water for 30sec, remove to cold water to preserve chewy texture
STEP 4: cut octopus into smaller bite size, then put in sauce to marinate for at least 30mins
STEP 5: over low-medium heat, pan fry pork belly till golden, which takes around 10-15mins.
- do not need to add oil as pork belly’s fat will be squeezed out and fries itself
- do not need to fry till crispy, personally I like juicy pork belly rather than dried “bacon” style
look at those fatty oil!
STEP 6: remove pork belly from pan, add in onion/shallot slices, pan fry till golden, caramelized, then add in jalapeno slices
STEP 7: add in marinated octopus, pork belly and rice cake, stir fry over medium heat. Add in a few tbsp of water (can use water to rinse off from marinated bowl then add in pan) to prevent dish from drying out; cook over medium – low heat for 5-8mins so rice cake is also cooked at perfect chewy texture.
Remove from pan and serve!
RESOURCES
