Korean Pancake Recipe - Bin Dae Duk

Ingredients:

2 cups of mung beans, usually labeled as "peeled split mung beans."
6 tablespoons calrose rice
Water
2 zucchini
1 red bell pepper
3 spring/green onions
1 yellow onion
Handful of sesame leaves or cilantro
Sea salt
Cooking oil
Soy sauce and sesame oil (optional for dipping sauce)

Directions:

1. Combine mung beans and rice in a bowl, give everything a good swirl to evenly distribute beans and rice. Add enough cold water to cover beans and rice. Let this sit for about four hours.

2. Wash up two heads of zucchini, one red bell pepper, 3 spring onions, one yellow onion, and a handful of sesame leaves or cilantro.

3. Use a knife or mandolin to shred zucchini into thin strips.

4. Right after shredding the zucchini, sprinkle a flat teaspoon of sea salt on the zucchini and give it a good toss. You want to let this sit for a good hour or so to draw moisture out of the zucchini. I know this seems like a lot of salt, but you're going to lose a lot of it a bit later, and any salt that remains on the zucchini will help season the pancakes.

5. Finely chop your red bell pepper. Remove the white flesh and seeds.

6. Slice up the sesame leaves or cilantro

7. Slice green onions diagonally for a nice fit with the pancakes.

8. Once the mung beans and rice have finished soaking, strain and transfer the beans and rice to a strong blender. This is where having a Vita-Mix Blender or something similar really comes in handy.

9. Add 1 and 3/4 cups of fresh room temperature water to the beans and rice, along with a teaspoon of sea salt. Blend until you have a nice batter. If you have to add more water to get things to blend, be sure to add just a tablespoon at a time to make sure that your batter doesn't end up too diluted. You want it to look like a relatively thick pancake batter.

10. Give the yellow onion a rough chop, add it to the batter, and give it another good blend until smooth.

11. Now transfer batter to a large bowl, much larger than what will comfortably hold the batter, as you'll be adding a small mountain of vegetables.

12. Remember the zucchini that we salted a while ago? Use a pair of clean hands to gently squeeze the moisture out of the zucchini.

13. Transfer zucchini to the batter.

14. Add finely chopped red bell pepper, green onions, sesame seeds or cilantro, and gently fold everything together with a spoon.

15. You now have your bin dae duk batter ready to go. You can store this batter in an air-tight container for up to a few days. As an aside, if you want to add a little meat to your bin dae duk, you can fold about 3 ounces of raw ground chicken into your batter (evenly distributing it) just before you take your batter to a hot pan.

16. Once you're ready to make bin dae duk that really should be eaten hot off the pan, heat a little olive or coconut oil over low to medium heat, then add generous pancake-size dollops of the batter to the pan. Once you see a bunch of bubbles rise to the surface of the pancakes, give them a flip and cook for another couple of minutes. You should use the underside of your spatula to press down on the cooking bin dae duk for at least a few seconds to make sure that the batter and vegetables cook right through.

You can enjoy hot bin dae duk pancakes on their own, or if you'd like a dipping sauce, combine 2 parts soy sauce with 1 part sesame oil and 1/2 a part vinegar - be sure to whisk well with a fork or chopsticks before dipping. De-lish!

The ingredient quantities mentioned above produce enough bin dae duk pancakes to comfortably feed at least four adults. But not to worry if you're making these pancakes for one or two - you can always cook up the whole batch and re-heat leftovers later, or you can keep unused batter in the refrigerator and cook more as needed.

For a step-by-step pictorial of this recipe, please go here:

How to Make Korean Pancakes