158 recipes. Page 4 of 7
Popular Korean street food recipes
Pork loin is pounded to an even thickness, breaded and fried twice, then sliced over shredded cabbage that has been crisped in cold water. The sweet cutlet sauce is poured over the top just before eating.
Pan-fried tofu and sour kimchi stir-fried with ground pork take turns on a skewer, turning the classic tofu-and-kimchi plate into something you hold in one hand. Leaving the tofu untouched until its underside sets gives it a crust strong enough to survive the skewer.
The eggs are mashed only partway, leaving small chunks among the fine crumbs so the mayo filling still has some bite. The filling goes on cold and the toast hot, either open-faced or closed with a second slice.
Flat fish cake sheets are folded zigzag onto a skewer, battered, breaded and fried. It is nothing like the soft eomuk skewers served in broth: this one is crunchy, finished with ketchup and mustard and eaten in hand.
Zigzag-folded fish cake skewers simmer in a clear broth of radish, dried anchovy and kelp, and the hot broth served alongside matters as much as the skewers. Radish sweetness and anchovy savoriness carry the flavor, with only a light seasoning of soy sauce and garlic.
The skewered fish cakes start in a dry pan with no oil. Driving off their surface moisture is what lets the soy and gochujang glaze stay put instead of running off. After brushing, a short second spell over the heat melts the sugar into a shine, and sliced green onion and sesame seeds go on top.
The batter is mixed with cold sparkling water instead of plain water, plus a little gochugaru. It gets only a light stir so the bubbles survive and is used right away, and the eggplant is salted ahead to draw out water. Once fried, the eggplant inside turns creamy.
Soy sauce and sugar replace the usual red gochujang, so the rice cakes taste like Korean soy-marinated galbi rather than spicy street tteokbokki. The marinated boneless pork rib is seared hard first, then water lifts the browned glaze off the pan and carries the meat flavor into the sauce.
Small cubes of raw potato are pressed onto the batter before frying, which leaves the surface knobbly. Those cubes have to cook through in the oil, so the heat stays at medium-low and the hotdog keeps rolling slowly. Inside, mozzarella sits beside the sausage and pulls into long strings when you break it open.
Slice potatoes into thin rounds and a few always come out noticeably thicker. Those get gathered and fried as their own batch, so they are not still raw when the thin slices are done. The slices soak in salted cold water to rinse off starch first.
Rolled around a pan, garaetteok develops a thin, dried-out skin while the inside turns even softer. The soy, gochujang and honey glaze waits until the rice cake has browned, then goes on in two thin coats over low heat.
The vegetable and egg mixture is poured wide in the pan, and once the edges set it gets folded twice into a thick square. That goes with ham between slices of butter-toasted bread, along with ketchup, sugar and mayonnaise.
A slice of cheese laid on the bread while it is still hot half melts and sticks the omelet and ham together. You can hold it and bite in without the filling sliding out the side.
Leaving out cheese keeps this street toast lighter and less greasy, with just a vegetable omelet and seared ham between butter-toasted slices. The ham gets only a short sear on each side and comes out as soon as the edges brown, before it dries.
Crisp waffles are spread on one half with strawberry jam and whipped cream, then folded over to eat by hand. Each one is filled and served right away, before the warm waffle softens the whipped cream.
Glass noodles seasoned with soy sauce and sesame oil go into seaweed with stir-fried vegetables, rolled tight and fried. Rolling while the filling is still hot wets the seaweed and tears it, so the filling is spread out to cool first. They also get dipped in tteokbokki sauce.
Said to have started at snack shops outside Seoul schools in the 1970s and 80s, this tteokbokki has no broth at all. The rice cakes brown in oil one side at a time, then the heat drops and a chili flake and soy paste goes in to coat them thinly. Warmed in the oil, the chili flakes smell toasty before they taste hot.
Mild green chilies are split lengthwise, packed with a pork and tofu filling and fried in a thin batter. One bite goes through crisp coating, then snappy pepper, then soft filling.
Under a sticky, shiny gochujang and honey glaze, the potato starch crust on these chicken pieces still crunches. They go into the sauce right before serving.
The filling uses both pork and beef, with wrung-out tofu, chopped onion and green onion, all kneaded in one direction only. Any water left in the tofu or vegetables loosens the filling and pools inside the wrappers as they steam.
This is the sweet potato fritter Korean snack shops serve alongside tteokbokki. The sweet potato is sliced evenly to about 0.5 cm. If even one thick round sneaks in, it is still hard inside when its coating turns golden. A little salt goes on once they come out of the oil.
Baked in a chrysanthemum-shaped mold, the shell comes out with raised petal ridges. It is a winter street snack like bungeoppang, but milk, egg and butter in the batter make it taste more of bread, with a smaller share of red bean paste. Vendors now also fill them with custard cream, chocolate or sweet potato paste.
Kelp-steeped water carries the gochujang and chili flakes, and the rice cakes simmer in it long enough to soak up the sauce rather than just wear it. Unlike stir-fried versions, this one should still have plenty of broth in the pot when the heat is turned off.
Instead of a wrapper, the filling is rolled into balls and coated in starch, which the steam turns into a thin, translucent, chewy skin. With nothing wrapped around it, the filling has to hold itself together: the tofu is squeezed hard, the soaked glass noodles are shaken dry, and the mixture is kneaded until a pinch of it no longer cracks.