Rice Duk

A few weeks ago my wife and I discovered that the local Asian market prepares fresh duk for sale on Friday afternoons.

For those not familiar with Korean cooking, duk is basically rice pushed through a press and formed into tubes. It looks a lot like string cheese. The are varieties with white or brown rice, and varying diameters of tube.

Normally it is sliced into discs before cooking. If used fresh it tastes best but sticks to the knife during slicing. If refrigerated it does not taste quite as nice but cuts easily. (If frozen it suffers dramatically in both taste and texture, so do not buy packages from a freezer display.)

For hot weather or lazy chefs this is great stuff. Instead of making rice, which takes a while and heats up the house, simply slice duk. Put it in any soup or stir-fry. The leftovers are as nice as the original meal: unlike pasta in soup the dish does not turn into a puddle of starch in the fridge.