Are Rice Cakes Healthy?
Rice cakes are a snack food. They are low in calories but they are not so good for your weight maintaining or losing diet. In fact if you consume rice cakes in larger quantities and in bigger portions with other unhealthy and/or weight gaining foods you may end up gaining more weight that is not a healthy approach. Rice cakes lack fiber, which is why they are digested easily. During the time of making Asian rice cakes, most people add sugar as well which helps increase the calorie count of a rice cake. Fortunately if you pair up your rice cake with healthy and nutritional food such as nuts, vegetables, hummus, honey etc. they can turn out to be healthy and tasty simultaneously. If you are looking for a healthier version of rice cakes, go for the ones that are made from seeds and whole grains because they are rich in fiber.
What to Serve with Rice Cakes?
Even though both types of rice cakes i.e. brown and white rice cakes taste the same but they are available in different sizes and shapes and surprisingly their shapes affect the texture. It can be served with different foods in several ways depending upon their sizes and shapes. Thin rice cakes are preferred while cooking with meat especially when you’re making stir frying dishes because they easily absorb the flavor of meat, sauces and vegetables so you can have stirred fried rice cakes, with thin cake slices. However, thick rice cake is generally served when you want to toast or grill your recipe because even if you toast it well it won’t deform its shape and will still be chewy from the middle. The most famous and commonly eaten Korean recipe with rice cake is Tteokguk which is a rice cake soup – a traditional Korean dish. Another world famous combination of them is tteokbokki which is made from long, cylindrical rice cakes they are also called stir-fried rice cakes. Koreans mainly make their traditional dok boki dish with it that includes chili paste, soy sauce, and fermented bean sauce topped with sesame seeds for garnishing. They can be served with bibim sauce as well.
Here are our delicious recipes that you can serve with Tteokbokki:
How to Store Rice Cakes?
Mainly rice cakes are long, cylindrical shaped. Color wise rice cakes are of two types one is white made from white gluten rice and the other is light brownish which is made up of brown rice. If you go to any Korean departmental or super store, you will see many staples of preprocessed and prepackaged rice cakes. Fresh rice cakes are also available there. You can make and store your own homemade rice cakes. All you need to do is put them in an airtight container or a zip locked bag. Make your rice cake, when it is cooled down, mold them in any shape you would want later - thick or thin, long or short or cylindrical. Put them in the bag or container and store in the refrigerator for a few weeks.
