hello! Hi everyone. Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series dedicated to Korean comfort food classics with a shot at one of my absolute favorite quick dishes to throw together at the last minute, which is the Korean kimchi pancake, or “kimchijeon.” For those unfamiliar, kimchijeon is a Korean battered savory pancake that you’ll commonly find in the small bites and shared plates section of a lot of Korean BBQ restaurants, particularly because it can be sliced up and eaten right off of the shared plate. Fancier variations of the Korean savory pancake may also see the use of seafood like squid or shrimp, but the kimchi version that we’ll be doing today is my personal favorite because it is essentially made from pantry scraps. This makes it an excellent option for late night 2AM drunk meals, last minute appetizers, or every time you’ve ever been cooking a meal and realized that there’s definitely not enough food to feed everyone.
Most traditionally, a kimchijeon would also be pan fried in a skillet (not unlike how you might do your regular old pancake for breakfast), which is absolutely acceptable in my book. For our version today though, it occurred to me that the composition of our batter is not too dissimilar to that of a Chinese egg foo young, which (as some of you may recall), we did a recipe for a little while back, and discovered that it works really well when deep fried, because the presence of egg in its batter causes the pancake to puff up pretty gloriously, which we will absolutely be experimenting with today as well.
Serves 2-3
INGREDIENTS
1 cup kimchi
3 green onions, sliced in 1 inch pieces
1/2 medium white onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic
1 inch (about 1 tbsp) ginger
1 cup kimchi
64 oz fryer oil (canola, vegetable)
INGREDIENTS (batter)
1/4 cup kimchi brine (or as much as possible)
1 cup ice water
4 tb gochujang
1 egg
1 cup AP flour
INGREDIENTS (sauce)
4 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp sambal oelek
1 tbsp sesame seeds
PREP
CRUSH the garlic, set aside
MINCE the ginger, set aside
SLICE the onion, set aside
SLICE the green onions into planks, set aside
WHISK in the egg until combined, then add gochujang, water, kimchi brine, and whisk until the gochujang is dissolved
FOLD in the flour until a smooth batter forms
FOLD in the kimchi, green onions, and white onions until combined
COMBINE all of the sauce ingredients in a separate bowl, set aside
ON THE STOVE
HEAT the fryer to 350F, then gently add the batter to the fryer with a metal ladle
FRY for 2-3 minutes on each side until darkened in color, then remove to a dry rack to cool
SERVE with sauce on the side