How to make the perfect kimchi pancake – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to Make the Perfect…

Crepes, okonomiyaki, blinis, dosa… although I love a classic crepe drizzled with sharp lemon juice and crunchy sugar, it's definitely not the only option for those celebrating fat Tuesday. Every culinary culture has its own version, but Koreans are particularly rich in recipes, the most famous of which is probably kimchijeon, or buchimgae, which are flavored with fermented vegetables spices. - YouTube sensation Maangchi describes it as "one of Koreans' all-time favorite meals... On a rainy day on the weekend, when a Korean family wants something special and cozy to eat, it's something anyone can make using the ingredients we have at home. Then mom will ask, 'Do you want me to make kimchijeon?' and everyone will be like, 'Yayyy!!'” Which is, of course, the appropriate response when someone offers you a hot, crispy, salty, and spicy snack with a side dish of probiotic sufficiency. If you're also missing a Korean mommy, don't worry - I'm here to help.

You can make a perfectly decent Korean pancake out of plain plain flour of the kind that sells for less than £1 a kilo – Maangchi herself recommends it, as does chef Kisu of Korean street food stall Ssambop, whose recipe is collected in the Brick Lane cookbook by Dina Begum. Aaron Huh of Korean social media duo Aaron and Claire prefer Korean pancake mix, but allow that, if you can't get it, you can use plain flour instead - looking at the labels at my Korean supermarket local, I find out that this pancake mix tends to contain flour, corn flour and baking powder, as well as various seasonings, so I followed a recipe from Hyosun from Korean blog Bapsang to make my own. I'm also trying a batter recipe from chef Hooni Kim, which uses plain flour and corn flour (a combination also favored by J Kenji López-Alt), and baking powder for onion pancakes. new ones, and one from Crazy Korean Cooking, which mixes and sticky rice flours, saying, "If you don't have any, just add more flour." But it's really good if you add it."

Use a low protein proportion of flour, such as rice, potato or corn, is good for limiting gluten development (which, while helpful for keeping the crepe together, will also make it tough) and for preventing it from absorbing as much moisture and oil into the pan (which will cause it to will leave soggy and greasy.) I love the slight bounce that glutinous or sweet rice flour gives the dough - which makes it "extra crispy on the outside and deliciously chewy on the inside", as the saying goes. host of Crazy Korean Cooking - but if you only have the regular kind, or indeed corn flour or some other kind of starch, use that instead A little baking powder, although not required, will create bubbles in the batter, making it even lighter and crispier.

These are pancakes made with water, rather than milk, but also, in the tastiest examples, kimchi brine. Kim's suggestion of sparkling water "to lighten the batter with the carbonation" and keep "the pancakes from getting too dense" is good, but even if you're using tap water, make sure it's also cold as possible, as low temperatures also inhibit gluten development (Kim puts hers in the freezer for 10 minutes before using, but I didn't find that made a big enough difference to outweigh the hassle of finding gluten). If you have a roomier freezer than mine, however, you might want to give it a try; at her New York restaurant, Kim tells readers of her book My Korea, they ke...