Korean Seafood Pancake (Haemul Pajeon)

Korean seafood pancake is one of those items on the menu I always like to order when eating at Korean restaurants, but usually it would cost my wallet about $12-$13. Granted the seafood pancake is the size and portion of at least a medium pizza, so one could feed a table of 4 as an appetizer, it's still much more expensive than a $5 appetizer from Applebee's (well, when they are running the $5-appetizer special anyway). So although a bit fearful, I attempted to cook my own "Haemul Pajeon."

First, I mixed the sauce together. I always liked the sauce from the restaurants as well, and it turned out making it myself is so simple! Who knew! All you need is some basic Asian ingredients, stir everything together with a fork, and end up with yummy sauce! I did put slightly more sugar in by accident due to my laziness to use the measuring spoons, but it tasted okay!

You can make this pancake with just scallions or green onions, but I included squid (chopped calamari rings), baby bay scallops, shrimps, and oysters! I never cooked with squid and oysters before, but I do love eating them!

The directions on many recipes I looked up said to mix the batter, then put the batter in the frying pan first, then spread all the ingredients on top. I was afraid that I wouldn't be fast enough and would end up with a burned pancake with uncooked ingredients on one side, so I decided to mix in all the ingredients prior to cooking everything in the frying pan. I think I liked this method better because first, you don't have to worry about being speedy and trying to distribute all the ingredients evenly, and second, the batter seems to cover everything much more thoroughly.

The only tricky part about cooking this pancake is flipping the pancake over! I couldn't do it successfully in one swoop, but I managed to manually flip the pancake slowly with two frying pans (yes, it was a lot of unanticipated work) without destroying the pancake. This is my fault in the sense that the recipe calls for 4 pancakes, and I decided to make a gigantic pancake plus one mini pancake instead. I also added some Korean spicy sauce as an alternative sauce to dip the seafood pancake in. 

Serving Size:

Makes 4 pancakes

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups water
2 eggs
1 bunch scallions/green onions
Vegetable oil
3 cups mixed seafood of your choice (fresh!) - such as oysters, shrimp, clams, octopus, squid ...
Dipping Sauce:
¼ cup soy sauce
½ tbsp rice vinegar
1 stalk scallion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
½ tsp Korean dried hot chili pepper flakes (optional)
½ tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil

Directions:
Mix the ingredients for the dipping sauce and set aside. In a large bowl, mix the flour and water together, then beat in the egg. The batter should have the same consistency as pancake batter. Add the scallions and seafood.
Heat a griddle, skillet, or frying pan over medium high heat and add a thin layer of oil to the bottom. I prefer to use a spray can. Pour about ¾ cup batter into the skillet in a circle. Cook for 6-8 minutes or until the top stops bubbling and the bottom is browned. Flip over and cook another 6-8 minutes. Transfer to a serving plate.
Repeat with the rest of the batter.
Cut all pancakes into 8-piece wedges and serve with the dipping sauce.