Kimchi Pancake with chicken

Salty, crunchy and often spicy marinated chicken is the country's Korean dish. This is also the delicious coronary heart of this fast evening pancake. Recipe under.

Ingredients

for the pancake:1-1/2 to 2 cups kimchi or 1 cup of kimchi and 1/2 cup chopped cooked chicken
1 egg, beaten
1 cup flour 1 cup water (maybe more)
3 tablespoons kimchi liquid
3 tablespoons chives cut into 2-inch pieces (or use the green part of scallions)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil

for Lazy Marion’s dipping sauce:
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 rice wine vinegar or white vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon hot oil (or 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes)

Make the pancake

Chop the kimchi and chicken into small pieces—this is so the ultimate result is a flat pancake and not a great miscellaneous jumble. Put the flour, beaten egg, water, and kimchi liquid into a mixing bowl and stir together. The batter should be runnier than American pancake batter—if it doesn’t seem runny enough, add even more water. Err a bit on the side of runniness rather than thickness. Once you have mixed the batter together, add in the chopped kimchi and chicken and stir everything together.

In a 12-inch nonstick pan, heat the oil over a medium flame—let the pan warm up completely before you start cooking. Add the chives and sauté them for a minute. Then pour in everything else and spread it around evenly. Then leave it alone as it cooks for 4 or 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, make Lazy Marion’s dipping sauce. Mix all the ingredients in a medium bowl and portion into individual small bowls for each person. See what I mean?

Once the pancake is nicely golden on the bottom (lift up the edge to check with your spatula), then flip the pancake and cook the other side. You can flip it using the plate trick (slide onto a plate, then hold the skillet upside down over the plate and flip it) or just flip the whole thing, exercising caution. Cook about 3 more minutes, then slide onto a serving plate or charger.

Traditionally, this pancake is sliced into long strips just before serving—we used a pizza wheel. It is great fresh from the stove. It is also great at room temperature, making it a good summertime dish, something you can cook in advance and then serve in the hot part of the day.

Kitchen Notes

Commercial Korean pancake batter mixes are available in Korean markets, but we chose not to buy any. I would have bought one of the mixes if it had been based on mung beans, but all the mixes at our local market were wheat flour plus salt plus additives we didn’t want, such as sugar and preservatives. It doesn’t really save any time to use these mixes, but it does cost more.

Omitting the egg. Many versions of this recipe do not use egg at all—if you are cooking for vegans or the egg-averse, it is okay to leave it out entirely.

Other delicious add-ins. Cooked sweet potato; cooked, diced barbecue pork; well-sautéed firm tofu cubes; other forms of kimchi, such as radish; diced shallot or onion; thin-sliced zucchini— for the last two, I would sauté them first until they are translucent. When you are adding in, just remember to keep the proportions of batter to additive sane.

What do you do with the rest of the kimchi? If you don’t make this recipe repeatedly until you’ve used it all, that is. After the kimchi has been in your fridge a week or two, marinate some sliced pork (or some firm tofu) in a little soy sauce for a few minutes, then sauté the kimchi, then mix them together. Simple, delicious. You can also use kimchi to top a pizza or in a grilled cheese sandwich.