Cream TteokbokkiKeurim Tteokbokki

Regular tteokbokki is spicy. It uses gochujang and gochugaru and produces a red sauce that coats the rice cakes in heat. For a long time, that was the only version most people knew.

Cream tteokbokki appeared in Korean cafes and tteokbokki specialty restaurants in the mid-2010s, a response partly to demand from people who wanted the chewy rice cake texture without the chili heat. It spread quickly. The cream sauce — heavy cream, milk, garlic, soy sauce, and mozzarella — is rich and savory with none of the spice.

I made cream tteokbokki for myself for the first time because I got the sauce proportions wrong on the spicy version. I had made a batch of regular tteokbokki and added too much water, then tried to rescue it by pouring in heavy cream I had in the refrigerator. The sauce turned pale orange, the heat dropped significantly, and when I added the mozzarella on top it melted into something that barely resembled what I'd started making. It was actually better than what I'd been trying to cook.

The actual recipe is more intentional than that accident. The key technique is stirring consistently once the rice cakes go in — they will stick to the bottom if you leave them alone. The sauce thickens as the rice cakes cook and release starch into the liquid, and by the time they are soft and chewy the sauce has reduced to a consistency that coats each piece.

Add the mozzarella at the end and cover the pan for sixty seconds. The residual heat melts it without needing direct heat, which keeps it from becoming stringy and rubbery.