[Korea Traditional Food] Kimchijeon(김치전)

Main Ingredients :
(Serves 1)
Main Ingredients: 300 g of kimchi, 100 g of pork, 5 small green onions, 1/2 an onion, 1 cup flour, 1 cup water, 1 egg, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp ground pepper, cooking oil

Spices :

* Food Story : Jeon, or the Korean-style pancake, is a mixture of various ingredients with flour batter pan-fried in a frying pan. The name varies depending on the ingredients. As the name suggests, Kimchijeon is a jeon made with kimchi as the main ingredient. It’s tastier to use well-fermented kimchi than a freshly-made variety. Kimchi is a preserved vegetable food like pickled cucumber; it has been Korean’s favorite side dish for more than 2,000 years. Seasoned kimchi mixed and fermented with various spices, including ground red pepper, garlic, ginger and salted fish is the representative kimchi.

Direction

1) Chop well-fermented kimchi into small pieces.

2) Cut the peeled onion into 0.1-mm slices, trim small green onions under running water and cut into 5-cm strips.

3) Cut the pork belly into 2-cm-by-2-cm chunks.

4) Mix the same amount of flour and water; add an egg and beat them together. Then, add the prepared ingredients – kimchi, onions, pork, and a small green onion – and season with a pinch of salt and ground pepper. Mix well. Also, add the sesame oil.

5) Preheat the frying pan and pour enough cooking oil. Next, cook the kimchijeon into pretty, bite-sized round patties.

6) Place the well-cooked, yellow-ish kimchijeon on a plate and serve.

* Tip

☑ Do not remove or rinse the spices in the kimchi; doing so would remove its rich flavor and the original color of the food.
☑ Adding pork, which goes well with kimchi, is the key point of making savory kimchijeon. Other ingredients can be added as well.
☑ Add sesame oil when mixing the ingredients in the batter to enhance the flavor.
☑ Preheat the frying pan on high heat; reduce to medium high after placing the kimchi batter onto the pan. When cooking, gently press the top so that the inside is cooked thoroughly.
☑ When re-heating refrigerated jeon, heat it on a frying pan without additional cooking oil to prevent it from becoming too oily.