Seafood and Chives Pancake - Haemul Pajeon

Easter is almost here! Yay more holiday! My next door neighbor, Rhusheet, and bubs want to go to six flags during Easter but I HATE rollercoasters. If I haven't mentioned that enough in my other post. I guess I can always stay at home and catch up with work like a lame-o :(

Last weekend, bubs, Rhusheet and I went to the tidal basin here in DC to see the ALREADY dying cherry blossoms. Only to find they were really all dead :(. Maybe a few trees here and there. I was so excited for some photo opportunities of the monuments surrounded by a sea of pink. So disappointed. And it was windy. And I was wearing a dress. I would have felt like Marilyn Monroe, if my hair wasn't all over my face and in my mouth haha. Sounds so attractive.... But we did manage to pack a picnic of inari sushi (yubucho bap), 2% Korean drinks and chocolate chip cookies. Everything home made, except for the drinks of course (or I'd be a freaking millionaire). Maybe I'll do a next post about making inari sushi. It's just seasoned rice in some seasoned tofu skins. Yum. And if Rhusheet (our adopted son haha) likes it, you'll like it too. We don't only bring him around to help us take pictures... We make sure we feed him :D

Anyhoo, back to food! We occasionally go to the korean supermarket, which is unfortunately quite far. But when we do, we stock up our fridge with all kinds of Asian produce that would otherwise be $3927538 times more expensive at Safeway or Whole foods. Seriously, we bought a bunch of chives for $2 and I saw it in Safeway in a sad little box for $7! Ridonculous! With our plethora of veggies, we decided to make....

Haemul Pajeon - 해물파전

Ingredients - makes 2 pancakes

1. 5 stalks garlic chives

2. 5 stalks green onions

3. 1/2 pack of enoki mushrooms

4. 1 Korean zucchini - thinly sliced

5. fistful of frozen seafood or around 5 fresh shrimps

6. 1 Serrano chili (optional!)

7. 2 cup Pancake flour (store bought)

8. A little less than 2 cups cold water

9. 1 tsp Korean chili pepper

10. pepper

Dipping sauce

1. 2 tsp sesame oil

2. 2 tbsp soysauce

3. 2 tsp white vinegar

4. 1 tsp chili powder

6. 1 tsp sesame seeds (optional)

7. chopped Serrano/jalapeno (optional)

Prepare all your ingredients: chop chives, mushrooms and onions into lengths of 2 inches. Finely chop your Serrano chili or just slice it thinly or use something less spicy like jalapeno (weak!). For the seafood, we like to use a frozen bag of assorted seafood that you can get really cheaply at an Asian supermarket. If not, take 5 shrimps and chop them into bite sized bits.

Pancakes are so easy to make when you have the pajeon flour. Also available in many Korean food stores. I've tried making it with flour, eggs etc... but you need extra ingredients like panko crumbs, glutinous rice flour to make the pancake that chewy and crispy texture at the same time! TOO much work. And I'm very lazy. The ready made flour is all seasoned and all you have to do is add water. Works like a charm!

In a large boil, you can start with 1 cup of flour and 4/5 of water to make a pancake. Mix that up real well and you can add more pepper or chili powder if you so wish. Then, add a handful of all the ingredients into the mix. We like lots of vegetables in our pancakes, but you can always adjust it. Just remember that lots of veggies means less doughy, more crispy! The garlic chives are SOO delicious in pancakes, but you can thinly slice 1/2 an onion instead. But chives.... so fragrant!

Heat up a large frying pan, add a generous amount of olive oil. You always want to wait for the oil to heat up or else anything you put into the pan will just soak up all the oil and make it soggy! (tip learned from Hell's Kitchen, I love you Gordon Ramsey!! <3). Add in all your batter to make 1 pancake, or you can make it mini. If I were to make it alone, I'd make it small. But bubs is a pancake flipping mastah!

Do remember to spread your batter out thin and separate your veggies well. Fry on one side until golden brown on medium heat (around 5 mins). Flip and do the same on the other.




For the dipping sauce, just mix those ingredients all together. There's a picture to show you what I used and the pack of pancake flour. Cut up your pancake and enjoy with lots of kimchi!

om nom nom