Haemul Pajeon - Korean Seafood Pancake

This is a dish I have enjoyed at Korean restaurants and cooking at home in the kitchen.  A thick eggy pancake filled with a variety of seafood.  I thought I'd give a shot at a backcountry version.  My first try, though tasty, was a little dry and needed some refinements in ratios and cooking method.  As I was writing the first draft of this post I realized that I had only used half the water needed to reconstitute the powdered egg.  So I stopped writing, pulled out the stove and tried it again with the correct amount of water and other alterations to my recipe.  The result was an incredibly tasty pancake with a nice glutinous eggy texture.

You can buy dried shrimp and sweet rice four from most Asian grocery stores.  Sweet rice flour has a glutinous chewy texture when cooked.  Dried onion is available at many stores and in many forms.  I bought mine at the Asian super market.   I got powdered eggs from Honeyville Farms online.

1/3     cup  Dried Shrimp
4       Tb   Egg Powder
2 + 2/3 Tb   White Flour
2 + 2/3 Tb   Sweet Rice Flour
3       tsp  Oil
1       tsp  Dried Onion
1/4     tsp  Salt
1/2     cup  Water

Add the egg, both types of flour, salt, onion and water and mix together.

The first time I tried the recipe I didn't mix the onion in with the batter and cooked some of them with the shrimp and pressed the rest on the out side of the pancake.  I found that the onions cooked way too fast and wound up burt.  I also lowered amount of shrimp from 1/2 cup to 1/3 cup.  This is a better ratio of shrimp to batter.

Add a tsp of the Oil and on very low heat gently fry the shrimp for 2 minutes.  This makes the shells a little crispy.  If they are overcooked they become too crispy and disintegrate when mixed in with the batter.

Add the shrimp to the batter.

Add 2 tsp of oil with very low heat.  When the oil is hot, add the batter and cook covered for 4 or so minutes before flipping.

Flip!

Continue flipping every 2-3 minutes until both sides are nice and brown.  Keep the pan covered between flips.  Around 12 minutes total cooking time.

Enjoy!

This pancake is delicious and has a great texture.  Lots of protein from the egg and shrimp and carbs from the flours.  The batter alone has incredible potential for a variety of recipes.  It could be great mixed with an assortment of sweet or savory ingredients or just cooked by itself.


Freeze dried blue berries come to mind.  Rehydrated and sautéed shiitake mushrooms sounds good.  Or just dipped in maple syrup!