Haemul Pajeon
(korean seafood/scallion pancake with spicy dip)
I've had this dish as part of a menu at a korean restaurant. Since I liked it a lot,
I did some research on it. First I've googled for english recipes, then I've found
the korean hangul version of pajeon (파전

via
wikipedia. I've used it to search
the korean search engine naver.com and found a lot of
pics, funny
pictorials
and even a streamed
cooking show (slightly annoying!), that explained how to
cook the dish. Do I speak korean? No. I've just pieced the english infos
and korean visual clues together and cooked the dish:
main ingredients
1 X egg
1 X bunch of scallions
2 X red chili
1 CUP flour
1 CUP ice water
1/3 CUP
squid (1/4 of a squid, small slices)
1/3 CUP baby shrimp
1/3 CUP
scallop (two adductor muscles, small slices)
1 TSP salt
1 TBSP sesame oil (pressed from roasted seeds)
3 TBSP peanut oil
dip ingredients
2 TBSP soy sauce
1 TBSP rice wine vinegar
1 TSP chopped scallion
1 TSP roasted sesame
1 TSP chili flakes
1 TSP sugar
Regarding the seafood, it seems preferable to have one third clam-something,
one third shellfish-something and one third
cephalopod-something,
but the dish might also work with just canned tuna
first prep everything, once the pan is hot then there is no going back,
clean the seafood, slice the squid, the scallops, the chilies and trim
the scallions to pan-size, mix the dip ingredients
final prep step ... the dough, use a bowl that will be able to accommodated the
scallions, crack/mix egg, add a sip of ice water, salt and sesame oil, mix well,
then add the flour
mix and add only as much water that the dough is able to coat the scallions,
if the dough is too runny then add another spoon of flour until it's right
heat a pan, oil generous, then whip the pan with a paper towel, it will create
a nice spread of oil pearls, wait for the oil to smoke
add the scallions and somewhat align them before the dough settles down
add the seafood and chili stripes, then spoon the rest of the remaining dough on top
pour a little oil around the pancake/pajeon, use two spatula, shove them under each
end and perform the first flip
check the color of the pajeon, if it's not burn then everything is right on track,
else adjust the heat a little or flip more often, use a spatula to peek underneath,
don't burn the seafood side
second flip, seafood-side up, heat is perfect
just keep frying and flipping
done when nicely browned, remove from pan
serve sliced to make it more chopstick/dip-able
잘먹겠습니다 (jal meokkesseumnida)