Hotteok

Recipe by Casu Marzu Uploaded by Drimble Wedge

This is hotteok. Hotteok basically translates into “Jesus Christ these are delicious and easy to make, why aren’t Korean people fat as hell?”.

Hotteok is a popular street food in Korea. It’s a yeast dough pancake with a sweet filling. They’re simple, delicious, and hearty, which is why they’re so often served during the winter.

Start with a cup of warm water, two tablespoons of sugar, a half teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of yeast, and a tablespoon of oil. Combine.

Let the little yeasties do their thing. Measure out two cups of flour and add to the yeast slurry.

Mix until it forms a sticky ball, cover and let rise until doubled. Punch the dough down and let it double again.

While letting the dough rise, combine a half cup of brown sugar, a tablespoon of cinnamon, and a palm full of chopped walnuts.

Turn the dough out onto a handful of flour, add another handful on top, maybe a half to three-fourths of a cup in total. Knead together until the dough is manageable. Add more flour if needed.

Now you’ve got a completed dough round. Congrats.

Do the chop chop thing until you get 8 equal sized balls. Or more if you like smaller ones. Larger if you like larger. Whatever really.

Flatten the dough into a disk and scoop a bit of the filling in the middle. Pinch the edges together to form another ball.

These are ready to fry.

I forgot to get a photo of the frying process, but you just heat a pan with some oil in it, toss a dough ball in and press flat with a spatula. Let it brown on one side until golden brown, 30-45 seconds or so. Flip, smash some more, and let cook.

Woo. You have now made hotteok. Delicious.

Besides this filling, it’s also good with a lot of other stuff. I really like filling themwith some leftover char siu bulgogi, and/or kimchi and frying it that way.