Hobak Jeon ~ Korean Zucchini Pancakes

By NO means do I claim to
know what the heck i'm doing here with this recipe but I decided I'd give it a shot and well, it all turned out A-OK.  Probably totally laughable by an expert.....or even semi-expert, but it was tasty and thats really all I care about.  I had grabbed this bag of Korean pancake mix from the Korean market awhile back because the picture looked so yummy and the instructions looked easy enough.  I could have done all of this from scratch, but half the recipe was in a bag.... I'm lazy.

                              


You Will Need:
1 large zucchini.
2-3 large carrots.
1 large onion.
1 bag of pancake mix - 500g (easily found in the Korean grocery).
3 3/4 cups of water.
2 tsp salt.
Oil.

Step 1:

Chop the zucchini into matchstick sized pieces.

Step 2:

Place the matchsticks in a strainer and sprinkle with some salt and let it sit for about 30 minutes.  The zucchini will get soft, the liquid will drain out. 

Step 3:
Grate the carrots and onion.  You may be shocked to know I never grated an onion a day in my life before this.  Grating is pretty cool really. Go ahead and laugh, but I was excited.
Shut up.

Step 4:
Mix the water with the entire contents of the bag. Stir until all lumps are gone.

Step 5:

Now you get to add everything to the mix and stir. We're getting closer to the final product! I'm so hungry.

Step 6:
Heat a pan on medium heat and add some oil.  When oil is hot, pour about a cup full of batter into the pan. Add more if needed to fill the pan. Spread everything around evenly.


You'll want to cook until the bottom is brown and then flip it over and brown the other side. The entire bag of mix made more than enough to feed four people with lots of left overs.  You can reheat the leftovers by re-frying or use the lazy method like me - microwave. Its just as tasty I think.

     

Step 7: Dipping Sauce
You gotta make dipping sauce, because well, you gotta. It completes the dish really.


I just mixed soy sauce and rice vinegar together.  The amount depends on how much you'd like to make.
Whatever that is, rice vinegar should be about half of the soy sauce.  So 4tbs soy sauce to 2tbs rice vinegar.
And if you'd like to spice it up, you can add some chili.

And as an accompaniment, I fried up some dumplings. Store bought. Same dipping sauce.  Deeeelishus.