Minimal Recipes

Today, I made a traditional Korean dish, bu.chim.gae as my lunch. This is actually more of an appetizer or a side dish but I think this can be a fine meal as well (it fills you up pretty quick ^^). Koreans make bu.chim.gae with all sorts of ingredients like seafood, beef, pork, vegetables, and combination of these. Today, I made kimchi buchimgae. It is fast and delicious because kimchi has so many good ingredients in it already.

Direction:
1. Dice 1/2 cup of kimchi and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, put 1/2 cup flour, 1Tbs of starch, 1ts salt, and 1/2 cup water and mix well.
3. Pour 3~4Tbs of oil in a pan and preheat on medium heat.
4. Mix diced kimchi and flour batter together.
5. Pour the mixture on heated oily pan.
6. Cook few minutes on each side until the crust look crispy.

I put about 1/2 cup of kimchi but you can put more if you want to.
For better color, I put about 1Tbs of kimchi water from the jar. You can add more vegetable if you want to. (onion, green onion…)
I used smaller pan about 9in, poured 2/3 of mixture. You may use larger pan and pour everything but try to make the pancake as thin as you can for crispy texture (it taste better). Also use generous amount of oil. Oil makes it really crispy and prevents from burning.
Flip it over once pancake moves freely on the pan.

While other side is frying, get the sauce ready. 1Tbs of soy sauce and little bit of sesame seeds will do it. You may add few drops of vineger as well.

Edges look pretty crispy!


Koreans often eat buchimgae while they drink. This is really good with soju (Korean sake) or Mak.geol.li (Korean rice wine).

Don’t be afraid to try kimchi if you haven’t yet. Now a days, even some WholeFoods market and walmart carry them. If you thought kimchi was too spicy and tangy for your taste, this will be a good recipe for you. Once kimchi is cooked, the spicy and tangy flavor reduces.