Pancake recipe

A Korean national favourite and an enterprising way to spice up Shrove Tuesday (or plain old 'pancake day' in the UK)

Spoon in half or all of the batter, depending on whether you’re making one large or two small pancakes, and flatten into a thin round. I don’t think you need one, given the pancake itself has enough flavour to see you through to Easter, but feel free to play around with your own combinations – though Crazy Korean Cooking simply instructs viewers to “pair with makgeolli”, or korean rice wine, which is a serving suggestion I’m also happy to endorse. Don’t add all the oil to the pan at once, though, because you’ll make life harder for yourself when it comes to turning the pancakes – instead, do as Maangchi tells you, and save half for when you flip them, thus ensuring both sides are crisp, and reducing the chances of you ending up with minor burns. Salt and sugar pop up in every recipe I try, though if you’re averse, by all means do leave out the sugar (and, indeed, the salt). This is very much optional, because I’m aware some people find the very mention of it offensive, but it does give the pancakes an addictively savoury quality – as Aaron notes, with its help, “people will say you should open a restaurant”. Bring whatever kimchi you like to this party, though kimchijeon is often recommended as a good way to use stuff that has become a little too intense to eat on its own – as Joo puts it, “when your kimchi gets really funky and fermented, and you’re scared of what it might do to your digestive system, that’s the best time to make these pancakes. Using a proportion of lower-protein flour, such as rice, potato or corn-, is wise to limit gluten development (which, though useful for keeping the pancake together, will also make it tough) and to stop it absorbing so much moisture and oil in the pan (which will leave it soggy and greasy). If you have a more capacious freezer than mine, however, you might want to give this a go; at his New York restaurant, Kim informs readers of his book My Korea, they keep the batter in the freezer throughout service). Though I’m aware that, in theory, the whole point of Shrove Tuesday is to use up such things before Lent, I’m going to leave egg out of my, because, in amateur hands, they can make the batter heavy, which is exactly what I’m hoping to avoid here. A little baking powder, though not mandatory, will create bubbles in the batter, which will make it even lighter and crisper. On a rainy day on the weekend, when a Korean family wants something special and cozy to eat, this is something anyone can make using the ingredients we have at home. [Ssambop](https://www.ssambop.com/), [whose recipe is collected in Dina Begum’s Brick Lane Cookbook](https://app.ckbk.com/recipe/bric37397c01s001r005/kimchijeon-kimchi-pancakes).