Gogijeon 고기전
Roughly, gogi means meat and jeon means pancake. I say roughly because pancake to a Korean does not bring to mind the classic Americana imagery of fluffy flapjacks covered in syrup. Instead, the batter is meant to be savory like with Kimchi Pajeon, or just some kind of egg coating.
I make mine with ground pork for the tenderness, and don't add salt because it's naturally salty, and will be served with a soy - vinegar dipping sauce.
So why call something that's like a squished meatball the name of a sweet, cake-like dish? Sometimes it's easier to understand something that's visual. I'm sure somewhere down the line a conversation between a granddaughter asking her Korean grandma how to explain what jeon was resulted in "just tell them it's a pancake".
Gogijeon 고기전 Meat Savory Pancake
Ingredients
Makes about 30 - 1" pancakes
2 lbs. ground pork
7 green onions
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp gochugaru
3 eggs
½ cup flour
Dipping Sauce
1 TBSP soy sauce
1 TBSP rice vinegar
½ tsp gochugaru
½ tsp sesame seeds
Steps
1. Cut off the roots of the green onions, then dice into small pieces. Peel and mince the garlic.
2. Combine the ground pork, green onions, garlic, gochugaru and 1 egg. Roll about a tablespoon of the mixture in your hands, then flatten to about to about an inch diameter. Put these in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes, up to 2 hours, to firm up.
3. Heat your skillet to medium heat. Add oil if needed. Whisk 2 eggs into a bowled plate. Put the flour in another bowled plate. Cover one of the pancakes with flour, shake off the excess, then coat in the egg. Put immediately in the skillet. Repeat until the skillet is full without the pancakes touching each other. Fry about 5 minutes on each side.
4. Put the gogijeon on a cooling rack and serve with soy sauce and vinegar dipping sauce.
Notes
- You can substitute the ground pork for ground beef. Add a pinch of salt, since it's not as salty as pork.
