Another cooking video! We didn’t show the recipe exactly because there are lots of recipes online and they are all pretty similar. We wanted to show the extra things you can put into tteokbokki which can make it even better.

By the way, it wasn’t three of us eating all that tteokbokki! There were many people eating it, we just didn’t show them.

It can be interesting observing the Korean hierarchy sometimes. You’ll notice in the video I pointed out how my husband acts in relation to his sister sometimes. She is only one year younger than him but it can make all the difference. Of course she has to call him “oppa” but also, she can’t really be on equal terms with him. It’s very different to the relationships I have with my siblings where age doesn’t make much difference. My sister-in-law however, will listen patiently to lectures from my husband and will be respectful to him even when he does annoying things like take her food. My siblings wouldn’t put up with me doing that.

My husband was the eldest Korean in the house while we were there. Typhoon (who you have seen before and get a glimpse of his tattooed leg in the video) learnt the slang phrase “top dog” from some Australian friends and felt that was the best way to describe in English what my husband’s position in the household was in regards to them. So before we arrived he was talking about the “top dog” coming back.

Anyway, back to the food! It was really good! It was a combined effort. Adele was behind the camera but also giving some directions of what to put in. I really liked the cheese version as well. If you have trouble eating really spicy food it’s a good way of eating tteokbokki without it being too spicy. The cheese really takes away the edge and melted cheese is always delicious.