Tteokbokki sleepover :)

Cooking. Ugh, that dreaded word. But as much as I go round saying, "I can't cook to save my life" and scrambled egg on toast being as exciting as it gets in my kitchen, saying that I 'can't' cook would be incorrect. It's more a case of laziness. For me there is absolutely no enjoyment in cooking for one. It's expensive, tiresome and boring and I would much prefer to spend my time doing something else. Anything else, really. However, throw another cooking companion into the mix and a real purpose for cooking up a storm, other than to please my own belly, and I'm all over it... like gravy on chips!

So considering that my cooking skills have never mounted to much, what I'm going to say next may come as a bit of a shock. On Friday I cooked my very first Korean meal! I know! Told you you'd be shocked! My lovely friend Seolhee came round to mine for a tteokbooki making, movie watching (that part kinda failed!) sleepover and oh, what fun we had!

Tteokbooki is a popular Korean dish which can be bought readily and cheaply from street-food vendors all over Seoul. It is particularly popular with students and quite often their number one choice of food on the way home from or between schools. The dish consists of two key ingredients- tteok (rice cake) and gochugang (red chili paste) and was much too spicy and difficult (rice cakes are an acquired taste!)  for me to eat for a long time but now I can't get enough of the stuff! It's really quite addictive and something I'd happily buy and eat on the way home from school every day... if only my waistline would agree.

I'm so thankful to Seolhee for my step-by-step tutorial! Buying the ingredients at the market and making it together really was a lot of fun. It's a skill that I will make an effort to remember forever. I'm really looking forward to being able to make such an original dish for friends and family at home (once I've located Manchester's Asian market and stocked up on all the ingredients that is!)