The second day of tteok: Thai green curry tteokbokki

On the second day of my tteokbokki (???) marathon, here's a recipe for Thai Green Curry Tteokbokki.

The Thai green curry sauce recipe here is slightly modified from one posted online by the BBC.

Remember with all tteokbokki recipes, you start by soaking your garae tteok (???), which are the fat cylindrical rice noodles traditionally used in tteokbokki, in a hot-water bath ? not boiling water ? for about 10 minutes. Check the instructions on the package of tteok you bought at the Korean grocery store for recommendations on this step.

While the tteok are soaking, start making your Thai green curry paste. Since I work from home, I made the paste during my lunch break and kept it in the fridge for a few hours.

4?6 medium green chillies, seeds removed and roughly chopped
2 shallots, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons ginger juice
2 garlic cloves, crushed
small bunch of fresh cilantro, stalks and roots attached if possible
2 lemongrass stalks, chopped (or 2 tablespoons of dried lemongrass)
2 limes, grated zest and juice
1 tablespoon ground coriander seeds
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon black peppercorns, crushed
2 teaspoons fish sauce or light soy sauce
3 tablespoons olive oil

Place all of the ingredients in a food processor and blitz to a paste. Use straight away or store in a jar in the fridge for up to 3 weeks. This quantity is enough for a curry for 8 people. One quick tip about putting the paste ingredients into the food processor or blender: The lighter items, like the liquids and spices go in first, the heavier items (such as the chopped peppers and shallots) should go in last for optimum puree action. After I finished work for the day, I grabbed the green curry paste and started on part two of this recipe.
3 teaspoon Thai green curry paste
1 pound tteok noodles (soaked for an hour in warm/hot water)
2.5 cups coconut milk
1.5 tablespoon fish sauce
1.5 teaspoon palm sugar (or brown sugar)
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil

Saute the green curry paste in oil over medium heat until fragrant. Reduce the heat. Gradually add 2.5 cups of the coconut milk a little at a time. Stir until a film of green oil surfaces.
Add the fish sauce and palm sugar and let it heat until they are dissolved. Then add the tteok and continue to cook on medium high heat for about 5-10 minutes or until the tteok are soft and the broth has reduced and thickened slightly.

Serve with your favorite Korean side dishes (banchan). Mine includes kimchi, fried seaweed stems (???? ??), Korean spinach sidedish (??? ??) and mung bean sprout sidedish (?? ??).