Kimchi Pancake

Once, some time back,I watched a documentary about Korea. It named kimchi in its list of top five "World's Healthiest Foods" for being rich in vitamins, aiding digestion, and even possibly reducing cancer growth. Kimchi is a traditional fermented Korean side dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings. It is often described as "spicy" or "sour". It is Korea's national dish, with hundreds of varieties made from napa cabbage, radish, scallion, or cucumber as a main ingredient. Kimchi also has many different kinds depends on the main ingredients.Since watching the documentary,I always wanted to try out the dish! But  most of the time was rather doubtful if it would be to our taste!  When I went across a Korean recipe site, I came across a pancake recipe using Kimchi, Thought of given it a try. 

This recipe is taken from Maangchi , a Korean cuisine site. The kimchi used in this recipe is  cut cabbage kimchi ,as I could not obtain whole cabbage!

I am submitting this post to Asian Food Fest: Korea, hosted by Sharon of Feats of Feasts

Ingredients:
Kimchi, ground chicken, tofu, onion chives (or green onions), chopped onion, salt, black ground pepper, sesame oil, egg, flour, grape seed oil.

Directions:

Prepare kimchi

1. Prepare 6-7 kimchi leaves (6-7 inches long – 16 cm) and ½ cup flour in a plate.

1. Coat both sides of each kimchi leaf  in the flour by hand.

Make meat mixture

1. In a small bowl, add 2 tbsp ground chicken(can use pork or beef),  2 tbsp tofu (after gently squeezing out excess water with a paper towel), 1 tsp chopped onion chives (or green onion), 1 tbsp chopped onion, a pinch of salt and black ground pepper, 1 tsp of sesame oil, and mix the mixture well with a spoon.

2. Set aside.

Make the pancakes

1. Place 1 egg in a small bowl and add a pinch of salt. Beat it with a fork.

2. Add some of the meat-tofu mix on one side of a kimchi stem. Add some flour on top of the mixture.

3. Put some of the meat-tofu mix on the rest of kimchi leaves.

4.    Heat up a non-stick pan and add some grape seed oil (or vegetable oil).

5.    Coat each kimchi leaf with beaten egg mix and place on the heated pan.
*tip: the meat mixture should be bottom of the pan

6.    When the bottom of the kimchi pancake turns golden brown (1 or 1½ minutes), turn it over and cook another minute.

7.    Turn it over one more time and cook another 30 seconds before transfering it to a serving plate.
*tip: you can serve it as it is or cut it into bite size before serving