My former sister-in-law was Korean - well, actually she still is Korean she’s just not my sister-in-law anymore, hence the “former” - she used to make these green onion pancakes that I just loved but I never got the recipe from her. I’ve recently been craving these so I went on a google search for “Korean pancake” and it seems that they are called pajeon, but every recipe I found seems to contain some type of seafood and all she ever put in them were green onions. One site insisted that Koreans use a pre-mixed batter for their pancakes and don’t make them from scratch. My brother and sister-in-law moved in with our parents when I was still living at home, so I saw her make these a few times and I don’t remember seeing her use a mix.
Anyway, I tried one of the recipes I found, I just didn’t add the oysters and red bell peppers that were in the recipe but I did use some cooked shrimp. The first few pancakes were quite thick and I remembered my sister-in-law’s pancakes being rather thin. The batter was quite thick but it could have been that my pan may have been a little too hot so it couldn’t spread out as much. I added another 1/4 cup water to the batter to make it thinner. The pancakes were thinner but still not as thin as I remember. Both the thicker and thinner versions were still quite tasty, especially dipped in soy sauce. The recipe I found called for making 3 big pancakes, but I made several small ones because my former SIL usually made hers small. She served them like an appetizer or side dish.
Anyway, I was wondering if I did something wrong, did I get the wrong recipe or did my sister-in-law just make them differently than most Koreans?
She also made them with Kim-chee on occasion. I would have used some Kim-chee, too, but my grocery store doesn’t stock Kim-chee so I’ll have to make a special trip to one of the many Asian markets around here.
Does anyone else have other recipes or serving ideas? I love these with just soy sauce but I wonder what else they might go well with as my boyfriend doesn’t like soy sauce and I bought lots of green onions so I may make some more later this week.
A little off topic but I thought I’d throw in a mention about how she made her own Kim-chee while she was living with us and instead of burying the jar in the back yard she just left it on the enclosed porch where it eventually exploded. You could smell it all through the house, it was days before our eyes stopped watering. Good stuff.
Exploding kimchi jars are a sign of excellence. You know you’ve made it right when they explode.
My mom just uses flour and green onions - sometimes seafood, sometimes other vegetables. The pancakes are really just called jeon, and the prefix tells you what kind of jeon it is. Pa means green onions. If you put seafood in it, it becomes haemulpajeon - haemul meaning seafood. Anyway, there is no one way to make 'em - some like them thick, some like them with kimchi, some like them burnt to a crisp. I’ll ask my mom about how she makes hers and get back to you.
Here’s my recipe from a cooking class I went to a few months ago. We also made Vegetable Chicken Curry, Mango Shrimp Summer Rolls, and Blackberry Mousse. Yummy!
For pancakes
1 cup all purpose flower
Slightly rounded 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 whole large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup water
1 small fresh green Thai or serrano chile, minced
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 scallions (pale green and dark green parts only), diagonally sliced into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1/4 cup loosely packed small fresh cilantro leaves
For dipping sauce
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar (not seasoned)
3/8 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
1 teaspoon sesame seeds, toasted
Make sauce:
Stir together soy sauce, vinegar, and oil in a bowl, then stir in sesame seeds.
Make pancakes:
Whisk together flour, salt, whole egg, yolk, water, chile, pepper, and sesame oil in a bowl (batter will be thin).
Heat 3/4 tsp vegatble oil in a 8-inch nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking.
Pour in 1/3 cup batter, then scatter 1/4 of scallions and 1/4 of cilantro leaves over top, gently pressing into pancake.
Fry pancake until underside is pale golden, about 2 minutes.
Turn pancake over and cook until scallions are light browned, about 1 minute, then transfer to paper towels.
Make 3 more pancakes in same manner, adding vegetable oil to skillet each time (there may be some leftover batter).
Transfer pancakes to a cutting board and cut each into 8 wedges.
Serve warm or at room temperature with dipping sauce.
Ah ha! Every recipe I found seemed to be for the haemulpajeon even though they just called it pajeon. Thanks for the info. don’t ask, that looks like a pretty easy recipe. The flour to water ratio is what I ended up with when I thinned out my batter so that may be closer to what I’m looking for. Thanks! Lil Mahoney, that looks like an interesting variation but I’m not too crazy about cilantro in large amounts so that may not work for me. The dipping sauce looks good, maybe I could convince my boyfriend it’s not soy sauce. Thanks!