Hotteok (호떡)

Last weekend we went shopping at our local HMart (Korean Supermarket). The problem with shopping there is that you find all sorts of odd things that you want to try. We found this Korean pancake (Hotteok) mix on special and decided to bring a box home.

The box does obviously have some English on it, and there are some limited instructions in English. But once you open the box all the interior package instructions were in Korean. We tried pointing Google goggles at it, but the translations were not helpful. It was clear what you do with the yeast and dough, but it didn’t mention the ‘filling’. It seemed odd, but apparently you just add the filling dry – it melts and gets runny as you cook them.

After you mix up the dough and let it rise for a few minutes you split it up into golf ball sized pieces. Roll them out and add a spoonful of the filling. The filling is a combination of peanuts, brown sugar, molasses and cinnamon.

Pull up the sides into a ball, and roll it out again.

Then you cook the pancakes in a pan, or on a griddle. They get a minute or two on a side.

The package from HMart made 10 pancakes. They were pretty tasty, although very sweet. In the end I don’t think these would be that hard to make from scratch – perhaps I need to try that sometime. I think I’d also like it with different fillings.

Tom’s probably going to be sorry he missed this one. Last year at HMart we picked up a box of frozen pancakes that you put in the toaster – kind of like Korean pop-tarts. He really liked those for breakfast when he was running late.