Category Archives: snacks

Hotteok (Korean pancakes)

20 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by in breakfast, dessert, kids, Korean, pastry, snacks, Street food, Vegetarian

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Korean pancakes

I’m always on the lookout for sweet fried things to make for my kiddies. Not the most food trendy sentence now is it? I love making them pancakes, crepes, fritters and on Thanksgiving morning, beignets are our family’s special treat. These hotteok are a street food, not a breakfast food traditionally. I don’t remember ever eating these in Korea—I first saw them in a girleatworld instagram post. Served hot, they are delicious with a crispy outside, soft and chewy inside and melted brown sugar nut syrup oozing out.

They’re a little labor intensive for first thing in the morning, but you could make the batter the night before or start it early in the am and fry up a batch by brunch time. I made them for an after school snack and then heated up a leftover one with some fruit for my daughter’s breakfast. Of all things, my 8-yr old son wasn’t too keen on them—he said he likes eating ‘hot food with a fork’ and not with his hands!

Ingredients for 8-10 hotteok
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup glutinous rice flour
(if you don’t have the rice flour use 2 cups flour)
1/2 cup each of water and milk (or 1 cup milk)
2 tsp instant yeast, such as Fleischmanns
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
mild-flavored vegetable oil (or olive oil)
black sesame seeds (optional)

Filling
1/4 to 1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon
2-3 tbsp chopped nuts

1) Warm the milk slightly and add in the yeast, sugar and 1 tbsp oil. Stir and let sit for a few minutes.
2) Add in the flour and sesame seeds if using. Mix rigorously for a minute, then cover tightly and let rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
3) Knock air out. The dough will be very sticky.
4) Use plenty of flour to work with this sticky dough. Scrape the dough onto a floured surface. Shape into a log and divide it in two, then divide those halves and so on until you have 8-10 equal-sized pieces of dough.
5) Mix the filling together.
6) With floured hands so they don’t stick, flatten slightly a dough ball in your palm and then cup your hand to form a little pocket for the filling. Add about 2 tbsp of filling and then fold the sides over it and seal the hotteok. It should be a nice round ball shape. Set it seam-side down on a floured surface. Repeat with the remaining dough balls. Cover with a tea towel to keep them moist.
7) Heat up about 3 tbsp oil (I used olive oil) in a heavy bottomed frying pan and add the hotteok seam-side down. Fry the dough balls till golden brown on the bottom and then flip.
8) With a spatula or hotteok press, press the dough balls down until they are flattened discs. Fry till that side is golden brown and then flip again. When both sides are browned, lower the heat, cover and cook for another minute.

Serve straight away. They must be nice and hot!
Korean pancakes
Korean pancakes

Korean pancakes

Korean pancakes

Soba sushi

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by in healthy, Japanese, party bites, pasta, peanut free, quick and awesome, Sauces, snacks, soba noodles, vegan, Vegetarian

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

soba sushi-1
soba on nori-1
veg and soba on nori-1
veggies-1
sushi roll-1

My new cheat way to eat wasabi! Sushi with soba. Because I love wasabi but you can’t really just spoon it in, can you? It needs a home. So when you are in the mood for sushi and wasabi and don’t want to go through the whole sushi rice thing (soaking, rinsing the rice, cooling, sugar, vinegar, etc), try the soba noodle version. These hearty, nutritious noodles cook in 4 minutes. The only drawback is the arranging on the nori sheets as these are noodles, not rice that you can simply mush into place. I have read that a good technique to keep the bunches of soba tied with a string while cooking. Then the noodles are perfectly aligned for placing elegantly on nori sheets for rolling. I didn’t have any string to hand in my kitchen and I wasn’t about to go trudging upstairs to look for string so I just cooked them. And I ended up testing for how easy it is to make soba noodle sushi with clumps of noodles instead of perfectly arranged uniform rows of noodles. Turns out it’s fine. Just cut the ends off carefully.

Ingredients for three sushi rolls

2 bundles dried buckwheat soba noodles
1 small cucumber or persian cucumber
1/2 to 3/4 red pepper
1 carrot
sushi nori sheets

Dipping sauce*
1 small piece of dried kelp (about the size of your palm or smaller)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup good soy sauce
1/4 tsp sugar
3 tsp mirin

wasabi

* simply use soy sauce and wasabi if you like

1) Boil water and cook the soba noodles according to instructions. Rinse with cold water and set aside.
2) Prep the veggies by grating the carrot or using a carrot peeler to slice finely. Slice and julienne the red pepper and cucumber the same way.
3) Place the sheet of nori on a bamboo rolling mat. When the noodles are cooked and rinsed, lay out a good portion on a sheet of nori. A bit more than half of the bundle.
4) Layer the thinly sliced vegetables on top.
5) Using the bamboo rolling mat and your fingers to hold everything in place, roll the bottom bit of the nori sheet over all the noodles and vegetables and tuck in tightly. Then continue rolling the sushi roll until it is completely packaged all together. Set aside, seam side down and let rest for a few minutes. Repeat with the remaining nori sheets and noodles.

To make the dipping sauce

1) Boil the water and dried kelp and then let simmer for about 15 minutes.
2) Let cool, remove kelp and add in the rest of the ingredients and mix together.

Wet a good, sharp knife and cleanly slice the sushi roll as uniformly as you can. Carefully cut the ends of the noodles poking out of the sushi roll. Serve with the dipping sauce in a small bowl with wasabi on the side.