Korean Mung Bean Pancakes (Bindae duk)
In perusing Epicurious for some appetizer ideas for a Memorial day barbeque I was going to I came accross a recipe for Korean Pancakes. I really enjoy an excuse to go to the international grocery store, particularly a Korean excuse, but I wasn't entirely satisfied with this particular recipe so I searched around a bit before heading off to Grand Mart. I came across this post, International House of Pancakes from A Beautiful Mosaic, a great blog that I have quickly become a fan of largely because she shared some secrets on how to eliminate cookie spread, you know when they spread out and become as she puts it "crepe-like" and more crisp instead of staying thick and chewy like a good cookie should, I really get frustrated when that happens (the cookies still get eaten, but I am frustrated all the same). Anyhow...her post on bindae duk really is thorough and helpful and I only varied slightly so I'll just insert my photos here (though she also has really great photos...) and some brief explanations.
I actually got ahead of myself and bought mung beans at Whole Foods before I had a chance to go to Grand Mart so I ended up with green mung beans instead of yellow because that's all they had. The difference is that the green ones have not yet been shelled. The A Beautiful Mosaic post actually calls for the green ones, but I will say, don't do it. I soaked them overnight and supposedly that should have expanded them enough that the shells would come off and float to the top. They did expand quite a bit, but most of the shells stayed on and needed to be individually removed or rubbed together to come off and even then they did not "float to the top so much as sort of separate a bit when I swirled the water around. Point being, if you go the way of the green bean, expect a lot of tedious work ahead. When next I make bindae duk I now have a bag of shelled (yellow) mung beans from the international grocery that I will use. I finally gave up and left several shells on and really it didn't make a difference that I or my husband (who ate most of them, he loves spicy food, particularly spicy Korean food) could tell.
Kimchi!
Fernbrake, wait, what? Bracken (fernbrake or bracken fiddleheads))
All together now, with some garlic and scallions which I figured most people knew well enough to omit individual photos (though I will note that I used only the white and light green parts of the scallions). Isn't it pretty?
Add the processed mung beans
and Sesame Oil, just love the smell of pure sesame...can you smell it?
And the result is not a particularly appetizing bowl of thick mush, but if you know what's to come it is promising all the same. (note: you can add pork or other meat if you like and also a couple eggs if you want the batter to be lighter, but if you omit all of these, as I did, you still have a hearty pancake full of protein from the mung beans [1g per 1oz] and it's even vegan)
A couple minutes on each side in the pan and we're ready for sauce
That's it, that's the sauce in a picture. A little of this a little of that, do what you like and add a little spice, or in my case a lot of spice because again, my husband likes spicy Korean food.
In case you can't pick it all out from the picture it's the sauce from the Epicurious Korean Pancake recipe:
For dipping sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted
1/4 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
Just stir it all together and dip...yum
this sauce would be good for any number of things really
