Korean Chives Pancake Recipe (Buchujeon/Buchu Buchimgae) » Indonesia Eats
Buchujeon and BuchuBuchimgae have the same meaning; Korean Chive Pancake. Jeon or Buchimgae is a delicious and savoury Korean pancake-like dish made from various ingredients and they are mixed into a wheat flour-based batter, and then pan fried. Buchu is a Korean term for Asian or Chinese or Garlic Chive. In Indonesia, it’s called kucai.
It is commonly eaten as an appetizer, banchan (small side dish) and/or as a snack. Various ingredients such as green onion (pa), seafood (hae-mul), oyster (gul), squid (ojingeo), vegetables (ya-chae/yachae), kimchi, tofu (dubu) etc can be used. Now if you have any meat or vegetable leftovers in the fridge, don’t throw them away but instead use the ingredients to make a lovely jeon or buchimgae! Do ensure that the ingredients are cut uniformly for even cooking.
I know each nation has a different name for savoury pancake-like or fritters. In Indonesia, we know bakwan, bala-bala or ote-ote/heici (shrimp cake). The recipe below is Buchu Jeon (Buchu Buchimgae) and serves from 2 to 4 people.
Buchujeon (Buchu Buchimgae)
– Korean Chive Pancake –
Ingredients:
250 grams (1/2 lb) unbleached all purpose flour
170 milliliter (2/3 cup) water
1 egg, beaten
300 grams (10.6 oz) buchu or Chinese/garlic chives (or Kucai in Indonesian), cut into 5-cm or 2-inches long
100 grams (3.5 oz) green onions, chopped vegetable oil
salt & pepper to taste
Dipping Sauce:
¼ cup soy sauce
½ tablespoon vinegar (I used Filipino spiced vinegar)
1 stalk green onion, minced
½ tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
toasted sesame seed
Methods:
1. Place flour, salt, pepper and water in a bowl. Mix the ingredients to form a batter.
2. Put cut chives and chopped green onions an into batter and mix them up.
3. In a heated frying pan, pour some oil and and spread the vegetable pancake batter thinly. Lower the heat to medium. 4. When one side of the pancake is nearly cooked, pour beaten egg in the center of pancake. Turn over pancake and dish out into a plate once completely cooked.
Dipping Sauce:
Mix all ingredients for dipping sauce
Cook’s Note:
– To make a crispier pancake, add oil generously and spread the pancake mixture thinly.
– If your pan is not big enough, you can divide this batter into two batches.
– You can also use a spoon and spoon a small amount batter into a pan. So you will have many more smaller pancakes.