The 11th day of tteok: Ottogi curry tteokbokki

As our 12-day tteokbokki (???) sauce countdown to the Korean New Year
nears an end, we consider a Korean-Indian fusion curry sauce developed by Korean food company Ottogi in the late 1960s.

Koreans have put their own spin on curry and consume a lot of it. Today, I'm featuring Ottogi's hot curry paste in a sauce for tteok, or rice noodles.

Cooked with carrots, onions, potato and juicy chunks of beef, the common Korean curry dish would not grace the tables of the average Indian home because of a taboo against eating beef adopted from the South Asian country's Hindu heritage.

In this version, I'm leaving the potato out because we're already adding a starch in the form of the garae tteok (???), which are the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki.

Here's my take on the recipe printed on the back of the Ottogi curry spice packet.

1 package of Ottogi curry mix
5.5 ounces beef, cut for fajitas to compliment the tteok
3/4 cup garae tteok, presoaked and drained
1 cup onion, sliced thin
1/2 cup carrot, sliced thin
2 teaspoon grapeseed oil
3.5 cups water

Presoak the garae tteok in hot water ? not boiling water ? for about 10 minutes. (Consult the package for directions.)Slice the beef, onion and carrot and saute lightly in grape seed oil.Add 3 cups of water to the vegetables and bring back to boil.Mix curry powder with 1/2 cup of water until it's a moist paste.Add the curry paste to the rest of the mixture.Continue to simmer until the beef is nearly cooked.Add the garae tteok and cook for an additional five to 10 minutes until the noodles are ready.