Making Hotteok - 호떡

My experience with Hotteok has been rather limited, as I had only tried it once and that was several years ago during my first trip to Korea. I often see vendors selling them on the streets, but hadn't tried it since that first time. That is when I learned there are boxed mixes at the store and you can make them yourself! Maybe this is considered cheating, but it is the simpler and easier to produce way to me.

For those of you who do not know what Hotteok is, it is a common street food in Korea made with fluffy yet chewy dough, fried to a golden brown and filled with sweet brown sugar, cinnamon, and various other ingredients like sesame seeds. To a Korean, this 'pancake' is considered a dessert, but I struggle with this definition. Its taste is somewhere on the fine line between a breakfast food and an indulgence for me. 

The reasoning for why I feel this way is simple. For starters, the name itself when translated is referred to as a pancake, and at least where I grew up, the only pancakes that you ate were for breakfast. They also are sweet and made of dough, just like a breakfast pancake would be. My second reason is the fact that cinnamon and sugar is used in the filling. Biting into the sweet dough pancake fills my taste buds with a taste of familiarity. Distantly reminding me of cinnamon-sugar toast, which is something that I ritualistically ate for breakfast any time I visited my grandmothers house throughout my entire childhood.

Then of course, you have to take into account the fact that the dough is fried, not toasted. When considering this additional element the pancake reminds me of a second very American-style food: the elephant ear. The fried taste of the pancake filled with brown sugar is also very similar to this common American fair and festival treat, which is why it also could be an indulgence.

It is like the Hotteok took the best elements of all three of these foods, the pancake, cinnamon toast, and elephant ear, and combined it into a fluffy yet chewy, deliciously sweet filled pancake fried to a golden brown.

Since I am American and because I love sweet things especially for breakfast...I decided that instead of treating Hotteok like a dessert, that I'd start my day off with it. Now I will say this after the fact - it was deliciously satisfying, but I do not recommend eating solely Hotteok for your first meal of the day. It may be sweet like a pancake or cinnamon toast, but it is not a light food. It is heavy and will create a weight in your stomach that will follow you around for most of the remaining day. Granted, one single box is way too much for one single person to eat, and I was greedy...but still, I wouldn't try it. Even if you want to eat it for your breakfast, it should accompany other lighter and wholesome foods. Otherwise an upset stomach is highly possible.

In other words, Hotteok could easily be either a breakfast treat or a late night one in my opinion, and a treat you will always come back to. It joins the reign of sweet, fried doughy goodness that people everywhere love and crave. The ease of being able to make it with a boxed set also makes it something simple that you can make with friends or family (although the process of making the dough can get slightly sticky and messy). Fun, delicious, and satisfying to any sweet tooth, I would totally recommend this food to anyone and everyone.

Below is the video I took while making it!

Learning to Cook Korean Food

I have decided that living in Korea and not learning how to cook at least some Korean-style foods would be a huge mistake. So I dove into the land of YouTube and found myself a channel that I believe is perfect for me to learn from. The best part is, the channel is run by a Korean couple, but the recipes and measurements are in the American measurement system! Meaning I can understand them easily. Also, since I am living in Korea, the ingredients are much more accessible than if I were living back in Michigan. (There are no Asian stores within several hours driving distance of my house.)

With that being said, I would like to share the channel I found. I've only tried one of their recipes so far, but it seemed to work out and I was very proud of myself for it turning out well. 

The YouTube Channel's name is Future Neighbor - Here they have short, but simple videos on all the recipes they make. Some recipes are traditional, while others have a more fusion flare to them.

If you are more the standard, written recipe type person (like me) they also have a website: Future Dish

My first step was to view one of their channel's very first videos, and get some stock items. I still have a lot of stock ingredients that I will need, but I bought a few of the basics. What I really liked about the shopping list they provided is that they listed the ingredients in both English and Korean, so I could not only know what it was, but find it in the store also. Then I watched probably close to a dozen or more of their videos and found one I liked to start with. 

My first dish was 계란찜 (Gyeran-jjim) or Korean steamed eggs. I have been served these steamed eggs many times in restaurants here as a side dish and thought, 'I can do that'. I went all in, and even bought myself the ttukbaegi pot (뚝배지) at Emart for about 11,000 won (maybe $10.50 USD). I had been wanting to buy one of these pots for a while as a keepsake of my time in Korea, but needed a reason to own one. (Maybe that's why I really chose this as my first recipe...) One of my Korean friends also really likes these steamed eggs, so I thought 'Ahhh if I can make this, then my friend will be impressed with me!' I had decided. I would attempt to conquer Korean steamed eggs. 

Now, not many things can be conquered on their first attempt, as is the case for my steamed eggs. However, I think it was a very successful attempt. They were not perfection, but they were good. For my first try, that was good enough for me. I would include the recipe I used, but I would only be copying and pasting from Future Dish, so instead I will just include a link to their recipe here.

It is a simple dish with rather few ingredients. Mainly you just need eggs and water, the other ingredients add the flavor and authenticity that makes it Korean though - a little fish sauce, a little sesame oil, pepper, and some onions.

Some notes about my cooking process:

1. Keep an eye on the heat. There are heat instructions in the recipe, but every stove has a different idea of what is considered high and low heat. In my stoves opinion, low heat doesn't really exist. It putters from maybe an easy medium heat to nearly none at all. It may take some adjusting. 

2. Just keep stirring. This lets the eggs set properly and also prevents any egg from overcooking along the edges of the pot. 

3. It won't always be perfect. I followed the recipe exactly, but back to the issue regarding heat, my eggs cooked differently than my YouTube example. In the end my eggs were just the tiniest bit watery at the bottom. I think it is a learning relationship with my stove to find what heat setting works best. I also think that my eggs could have used a little more salt and pepper for my taste. So next time I will season the eggs more. In time I might try to Americanize them a little and season them differently and see what happens, but I will learn how to make it the Korean way correctly first. 

4. It really is a 2-person serving with this recipe. One person can eat it, but that is a lot of eggs, so you will be about bursting if you eat it all by yourself.

Below you can check out my (probably ridiculous and much too long) video of myself narrating as I cook. 

Stay tuned for my next cooking adventure hehehe