Haemul-pajeon | 해물파전
Seafood and Green Onion Pancake
This dish is made by pan-frying flour batter with julienned spring onions, squid, clam meat and oysters. Haemul-pajeon is served with a cho-ganjang (soy sauce with vinegar) for dipping. Although green onions are popular for sauces, there are few recipes that feature green onions as the main ingredients. Haemul-pajeon with a generous amount of seafood and green onions is popular and is an ideal as a snack or with relish.
Makes 4 sheets
- 10 stalks green onion (3½ oz, 100g), 1½ oz (45g) Korean chives, 4 oz (120g) clam meat, 4 oz (120g) oysters, 4 oz (120g) squid, vegetable oil as needed
Batter
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 cups water, 3 eggs, ½ tablespoon salt
Cho-ganjang (Soy sauce vinegar)
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon vinegar, ½ tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon water, 1 teaspoon gochut-garu (red chili pepper powder) (optional)
- Cut the green onions and Korean chives into 6~8-inch (15~20-cm) long pieces.
- Wash the clam meat and oysters to remove sand by shaking in lightly salted water. Drain in a colander.
- Cut the oyster into quarters.
- If squid is whole, lay it on a cutting board. Pull the body and the tentacles apart. Cut the tentacles off just in front of the eyes. Discard
the eyes, viscera, ink sac and backbone (small cartilage piece). Remove the skin from the meat. Wash the cavity of the body well to remove any sand. Cut the body open and lay it out flat, inside up. Once whole squid is prepared, or using pre-prepared squid, slice the body thinly into 1-inch (3-cm) long pieces and cut the tentacles into 1-inch (3-cm) long pieces. - In a bowl, combine the flour, water and an egg. Whisk them till a batter forms, and there is no lumps. Add pinch of salt to taste.
- In a small bowl, beat two eggs well.
- In another small bowl, combine all the ingredients of cho-ganjang and mix well.
- In a large cast-iron or nonstick skillet, heat 2 or 3 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat. Dip the ¼ of green onions and Korean chives into the batter. Lift them out of batter and spread the vegetables on a skillet side by side into square shape. Spread the ¼ of clams, oysters and squid on top of the pancake.
- Cover with a lid until the batter is cooked half way. Remove the cover and pour the ¼ of beaten eggs on top. When the bottom turns to brown, turn the pancake over carefully with a grill spatula. Pan-fry both sides until it is crispy and golden brown.
- Repeat above methods and make 3 more pancakes.
- Cut them into bite-sized pieces and serve with cho-ganjang.
The flour or rice flour batter used should be very watery. Include the batter only to the extent that it holds the ingredients together and pan-fry it until it is golden. For a crispier haemul-pajeon, use a prepackaged savory pancake mix or prepackaged frying mix instead of flour or rice flour. Parboil the seafood before mixing it to remove the moisture from the pajeon. That way, you can enjoy a more crispy texture. Typically we would have them place a thin layer of batter in the pan to form a pancake, then the vegetables, seafood and other ingredients were placed on top. Once the pancake was half cooked place the egg on top of the vegetable seafood side, then filp it. Cook until both sides were golden brown.
