I wrote this blog post in May but I haven’t been posting any recipes since the death of George Floyd. I was too busy protesting, crying, mourning the injustice of another black man murdered by the police. I also wanted all social media and media attention to go to the protests and Black Lives Matter movements.

I don’t know if this is the space for this, but Black Lives, They Matter. Black People Matter. My journey with race, equity, and social justice is a different post, one that is much harder to articulate than a recipe, but I implore you to do some research.

If you are a Christian, please check out Colour Of Compromise by Jemar Tisby .

And if you are not, Red Cross as well as the Washington Post are both excellent resources on learning more about the history of systemic racism in our country and the meaning behind Black Lives Matter.

It is only because thousands of people of colour and generations of minorities have come before me that I am able to have a space to write about a Kimchi Pancake recipe today.

No Justice, No Peace

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My favourite way to eat kimchi is by itself, like straight out of the jar. I love the stuff, but it gets kinda salty on its own so you eat it on the side with rice, maybe add a fried egg, even a teeny splash of soy sauce and sesame seed oil. Oh man, I could eat that all day. But let’s say you wanna do something even extra. Or your kimchi is getting a little too funky to eat on its own for you. Now what?

I never ever throw out kimchi (alright, maybe mold is one of the few instances where it’s not good to eat anymore, but that’s never happened to me so….)

There are so many uses for it. Boil any Asian noodles (rice noodles/ flour noodles/ vermicelli) and throw a scoop of kimchi on it, a scoop of gochujang (korean chili paste) and a splash of sesame seed oil, a wee sprinkle of sugar, and you have spicy Korean summer noodles.

Or you can throw it into a pot with rendered pork belly and tofu and potatoes and a scoop of gochujang, enough water to cover it, splash of soy sauce, and let it simmer until you get a stew.

But if you have all this kimchi and you’re not devouring it as fast as I am, and maybe you don’t have gochujang, what to do with all the extra? (Also, you really wouldn’t make buchimgae with fresh kimchi. The funkier the better.)

Alright, that was a bit long winded, but you can make kimchi pancakes ! When I was growing up, my mom would buy Korean Pancake Mix [Buchimgaru]. And if you live near a Korean store, do that ! Take the powder, mix in some water until it’s a runny batter and add chopped kimchi and cooked pork belly and bam! So easy.

But this is almost as easy, we’re just making our own pancake mix.

I grew up eating this as an after school snack, but I have it as a banchan (side dish) just as often. Today we had it as a banchan with kimchi stew and fried rice and egg. A really common dinner for us. Kimchi pancakes are also a very popular anju (bite of food you have with alcohol).

Enjoy !

INGREDIENTS

300 g flour
400 g water
2 eggs
100 g pork belly (optional)
Kimchi

INSTRUCTIONS

Give the kimchi a rough chop. This is the most labor intensive part of the whole process, and if you have a food processor you could give it a few blitzes in there. Also, I wouldn’t add all the extra kimchi juice to the batter cus I don’t want it to be tooooo runny.
Fry up some thinly cut pork belly/ spam/ ham. You really want to cook raw meat before you add it to your batter cus these aren’t going to be cooking long enough to cook raw pork all the way through and nothing is worse than biting into raw pork. Gross.
Mix the flour + water + eggs. It should be a runny pancake batter consistency. Now + kimchi + cooked meat (If you’re adding meat, just let it cool down a bit cus you don’t wanna cook your eggs in the batter). That’s it !
Heat up your pan, add a good amount of oil and ladle a thin pancake batter amount on to the hot frying pan, flip when the bottom is done. You want the batter to run a little when you pick up the pan and tilt it, but not so runny it’s frying to a crisp. And not so thick it’s fluffy either. You want it jussssst right.