The other day, we invited one of our fellow classmates, Sara Lee, to dinner and she introduced us to this amazing dish called buchimgae, aka Korean pancakes. Buchimgae is a very versatile Korean dish that consists of pan-frying a thick batter along with other ingredients to form a thin flat pancake. This is such a simple and easy recipe that can be completely customized to your liking. The batter consists of just flour and water! Besides the scallions and onions, the other ingredients that are mixed into the batter can be customized to your liking. Just to stay consistent, the recipe in this post will reflect the image of the dish we presented to you above. The interchangeable ingredients will be italicized. I can't wait for you guys to try this dish and make your unique buchimgae!
Cook Time: 1 hours
Difficulty: ★★★☆☆
INGREDIENTS
Pancake
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 cup of water
1 onion, chopped into strips
4 scallions, chopped into 1-2 inches, have extra for garnishing
1 jalapeño, diced with seeds removed
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp of pepper
Vegetable Oil
1 cup of oyster mushroom, julienned
1 large zucchini cut into, julienned
½ Yukon potato cut into, julienned
Sauce
3:1 ratio of Soy Sauce:Rice Vinegar
Sesame seeds
Red pepper flakes
RECIPE
Buchimgae
Combine the julienned zucchini, Yukon potato, jalapeño and oyster mushroom in a large bowl
Lightly salt and toss the ingredients in the bowl. Let sit for 5-7 minutes
Gently squeeze out as much excess water from the ingredients without crushing the ingredients
Gently mix in the flour, water, onions, scallions, salt and pepper into the bowl until a smooth and even batter is formed. Batter consistency should resemble that of pancake batter.
Heat a non-stick frying pan with about 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil on medium high heat.
Pour in the batter until most of the pan is covered.
Let cook until the edges become brown.
Once brown, flip the pancake over and add another teaspoon of vegetable oil. Let cook again until it becomes golden brown.
When both sides are browned, remove from pan and cut the buchimgae into smaller pie slice pieces for easy eating.
Repeat until batter is gone. This recipe makes about 4 large pancakes about 10 inches in diameter.
Garnish with thinly chopped scallions. Add salt to taste.
Sauce
Pour a 3:1 ratio of soy sauce and rice vinegar into a bowl
Garnish with sesame seeds and red pepper flakes
CONCLUSION
I am just in awe in how satisfying each bite of this pancake was. The inside of the pancake is fluffy and moist while the outside has a mild crispy crunch to it. Such a simple recipe, yet the flavors and textures of this dish balanced each other out amazingly. The sauce really just pulls all the different ingredients in the buchimgae together. Be sure to use the sauce sparingly. If you drench the buchimgae with the sauce it will be too salty. I can't wait to try adding shrimp or pork to this recipe to see how it will turn out. As I said, this dish is so versatile. Leave a comment and let us know what combination of ingredients you try and how it tastes! For this recipe, the number of aprons it will receive is...
