What Korean rice cake dish is made with gochujang and vegetables?

The Korean rice cake dish made with gochujang and vegetables is tteokbokki. It consists of chewy cylindrical rice cakes simmered or stir-fried in a sauce, commonly with gochujang, Korean chili paste. Fish cakes, boiled eggs, scallions, and stock are frequent additions, although recipes vary widely.

The modern red, spicy form is now one of Korea’s best-known street foods. It is closely associated with bunsikjip snack bars and pojangmacha street stalls. The dish is often served in a bubbling pan, with the rice cakes absorbing the sweet, spicy, and savory sauce.

Tteokbokki has an older, less fiery predecessor. Gungjung-tteokbokki was a royal-court preparation seasoned with soy sauce rather than gochujang. It predates the widespread use of chili peppers in Korean cooking and was recorded in the 19th-century cookbook Siuijeonseo. The red version is generally traced to the 1950s and became strongly associated with Seoul’s Sindang neighborhood.

The name literally refers to stir-fried or simmered rice cake. Tteokbokki is sometimes confused with bibimbap, a mixed rice-and-vegetable dish, or japchae, a glass-noodle dish. Its defining ingredient is tteok, the chewy Korean rice cake.