Ban Chan: Spicy fish cake stir-fry
29 Jul
Do you ever find yourself eating just rice and seaweed as a meal? It’s actually one of my favorite quick dishes to eat! But it’s kind of sad when seaweed is the only thing to accompany your rice! That’s when I realized that it’s been a long time since I’ve made any sort of ban chan (Korean side dish), so I decided to try my hand at making something new.
Fish cake (aka o-deng) is similiar to imitation crabs in the sense that it’s been processed to have hints of fish flavor, but not quite. I’m sorry but I have no idea what is really in it. Isn’t that comforting to know?
One thing I forgot to do is to lightly poach the fish cake by dipping it boiling water for a minute. This will soften the fish cake by adding moisture, as well as to clean out the “toxins,” according to my mom.
Recipe: Ban chan (side dish) – Spicy fish cake stir-fry
Ingredients:
1 package of rolled up fish cake, cut into triangles
1 medium onion, sliced lengthwise
2.5 tbs of soy sauce
1.5 tbs of gochugaru (red pepper flakes) to taste
1 teaspoon of sugar
3 cloves of minced garlic
1 scallion, chopped at an angle (I substituted with carrot top!)
Sprinkle of black pepper
Procedure:
1. Boil a pot of water. Turn off heat. Add fish cake into the pot, so that it submerges completely. Remove and drain.
2. In a frying pan with vegetable oil, cook the onions and garlic until golden brown, about 5 minutes, over low heat.
3. Add fish cakes. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add soy sauce, then gochugaru.
4. Add sugar.
5. Garnish with scallions and serve.
Check out my other ban chan posts!
