Jeon (pronounced John) is a staple in Korea, either as a side, an anju (food you have with booze, famously makgeolli) or just on its own.
Pancake is a bad translation really because while some are savoury pancakes, such as kimchi jeon, other jeon types are sometimes simply lightly battered vegetables or meat.
It is most famously eaten during Chuseok, kinda like Korean Thanksgiving where lots and lots of different types are made and eaten with family.
Today I made four different varieties but there are SO many more. I’ll try and make them all for the blog one by one.
I made:
Pa jeon – spring onion pancake
Dubu dong-gue-rang-taeng – tofu cakes
Hobak jeon – fried courgette
Saewoo jeon – fried king prawns
Served with some cho ganjang – sour sou sauce dip to cut through all the fried food.
Recipe for spring onion pancakes:
4 stalks of spring onions, cut in half, then halved lengthwise
1/2 cup Korean pancake flour (or seasoned all purpose flour)
1/2 cup water
Mix batter and add spring onions. Mix.
Heat plenty of oil in a frying pan and carefully place all spring onions in the pan, spreading out. Add a little more batter over the top.
Fry for about 4 mins, until golden brown.
Flip over and fry the other side. Add more oil if the pan seems dry, it’ll make the edges crispy.
Place finished pancake on some kitchen towel. You can either serve it straight away or if preparing for later, just quickly fry and warm up the pancake before serving later.
For the courgette rounds, you simply coat the courgette slices in a bit flour. Mix one egg in a bowl and dip the courgette in the egg. Place carefully in a heated pan with oil. Cook until golden, then flip and cook the other side.
You can do the same with king prawns or sliced spam.
I linked to the tofu cakes as that’s a recipe I found on YouTube.
For the Cho ganjang dip, mix 2 tbs soy sauce with 1 tbs apple cider vinegar. You can also add chopped onions in it.
