158 recipes. Page 7 of 7
Popular Korean street food recipes
A whole potato is turned on a skewer against the knife to cut one long spiral, then stretched out and fried in one piece. The thin edges crunch like chips while the thicker inner part stays fluffy. For a first attempt, fix the potato firmly on the skewer and lay it flat on the board while cutting.
Spiral cuts opened along the skewer let batter settle into every gap, so the sausage ends up wrapped in many thin, crisp ridges rather than one coat. An uneven knife depth is the usual failure: one side snaps off while the other never opens.
Coarsely chopped roasted peanuts crunch through a soft, buttery crumb in these mold-baked street cakes. Grinding the peanuts too fine keeps the nutty flavor but loses the crunch. They stay chunky, with a few pieces set on top for looks.
Equal parts gochujang, ketchup, and oligosaccharide syrup, brushed on in two thin coats, give these grilled skewers their glossy red finish. Hard garae-tteok soaks in warm water for only 5 minutes, since longer soaking makes it crack on the skewer. Sesame seeds go on at the end, and cheese powder is an option.
As the liquid reduces, starch from the rice cakes thickens the sauce into a glossy film on the cakes and fish cake. Stir in only half the seasoning paste at first and add the rest as you taste. Boiled eggs, sundae, or fried snacks alongside make it the full market-stall spread.
Tteokbokki and sundae (Korean blood sausage) are the usual pair at a Korean snack shop, and here they share one pan. The rice cakes simmer in gochujang sauce first; the sundae goes in when only a little sauce is left and gets just a few gentle turns. Stir it too long and the casing splits.
Ground beef and pork seasoned with soy sauce, sugar, garlic, and sesame oil give this patty the sweet-salty taste of tteokgalbi, Korean grilled short-rib patties, inside a burger bun. The toasted bun gets mayonnaise and lettuce before the patty goes on.
Wrapped around a wooden skewer rather than served as a free-standing patty, this tteokgalbi mixture needs far more grip than the plated kind. A little starch and more than 3 minutes of kneading give it that, and skewers soaked in water for 10 minutes scorch less. Tteokbokki sauce or ketchup alongside makes it a street-stall snack.
Garae-tteok on skewers is browned in an oiled pan before the gochujang sauce goes on. A final minute of rolling over low heat after glazing sets the sauce onto the surface, so it stays put even as the skewers cool.
Sweet potato, carrot, onion, squid, and shrimp share one pot of oil here, and they cook at very different speeds. Slicing the dense vegetables thin lets their centers soften before the coating darkens, while dry seafood spits less in the oil and carries a lighter batter. Cold water and a brief stir give a light, shattering shell, and the platter goes to the table with a small dish of soy sauce instead of salt.
Ice-cold shredded cabbage, lettuce, and cucumber sit under hot, crisp frozen dumplings, mixing two temperatures and two kinds of crunch in every forkful. The dressing of gochujang, vinegar, sugar, and sesame oil tastes sweet, sour, and spicy all at once. The dumplings are store-bought frozen ones, and they go on just before eating so they stay crisp.
Without any meat, the filling leans on firm tofu, cabbage, garlic chives, and short-cut Korean sweet potato glass noodles, which give each bite an even, springy chew while the chives stand in for green onion. Pan-frying sets a thin golden crust on the bottom while the top of the wrapper stays soft.
Boneless thigh pieces get only a potato starch coat and two trips through the oil, the second one hotter. The sweet and spicy gochujang and corn syrup glaze goes on in a pan already off the heat, with about twenty seconds of tossing. Even cold, the pieces still crunch when you bite in.
Chicken hearts turn chewy and springy on the skewer, and their flavor builds the longer you chew. Halving each heart and clearing out blood clots and the thin membrane is what keeps the taste clean rather than gamey. A thin glaze of soy sauce, oligosaccharide syrup, and mirin brushed on both sides adds a sweet-salty shine, finished with sesame oil and black pepper.