Tteokbokki
/ˌtʌkˈboʊki/noun
A Korean dish of chewy rice cakes cooked in a usually spicy, sweet-red chili sauce.
Did you know?The earliest known form, gungjung-tteokbokki, was associated with Korean court cuisine and used soy sauce, meat, mushrooms, and vegetables rather than the modern red chili sauce.
Etymological Timeline
Middle Korean period
Middle Korean
tteok
“Rice cake or steamed grain cake”
Pre-modern Korean
Korean
bokda
“To stir-fry or pan-fry”
Joseon period
Korean
gungjung-tteokbokki
“Royal-court rice cakes prepared in a savory sauce”
20th Century
Korean
tteokbokki
“Rice cakes cooked by stir-frying, increasingly with gochujang-based sauce”
Late 20th–21st Century
English loanword
tteokbokki
“Korean spicy rice-cake dish, especially familiar through street-food culture”
Explore more surprising origins