Haemul Pa Jeon and Dubu Jeon

I had a successful day in the kitchen this Sunday afternoon/evening. I had mentioned to my mom during our Skype conversation that I didn't have anything special planned for the day, so maybe I'd do some cooking. Here's what was on the menu:

Lunchtime:
Seafood and Green Onion Pancakes (Haemul Pa Jeon)

This is a very common food that you can find all over Korea. I though I'd try making it from scratch, but that required me to buy both white and rice flour, neither of which I know the Korean word for. I decided to get a pre-package mix, similar to Bisquick mix I would assume.

It's a pretty simple receipe. I choose to add fresh shrimp to mine rather than squid. Not that I don't like it, it is just a lot harder to buy :) I also added about 5 green onions, cut into 2 inch pieces. I had some extra ingredients (red pepper, bean sprouts, and raddish) that I also decided to include.



Here it is, frying away in some canola oil:



And finally, the finished Haemul Pa Jeon:


~Quite delicious I thought!

Dinnertime:
Pan-fried tofu with mushrooms (Dubu Jeon)

This reciepe is fairly simple, but next time I make it, I'm going to actually follow the reciepe for the dipping sauce. I winged it this time and it was fine, but it could have been even better. Instead of using beef, I used pork. Beef is about 5 times as expensive, and it's hard to justify spending $5 on 100 grams, when I can get 100 grams of pork for just over $1.

First, I had to make the soy scallion dipping sauce. I had about half of the ingredients and improvised on the rest. It ended up being a combination of soy sauce, sesame oil, water, sugar, scallions, sesame seeds, and Korean red pepper flakes.



Basically, you fry the tofu, cook the meat and mushrooms, and spoon on some sauce. It's pretty easy.



I complemented the dubu jeon with some cooked zucchini. What a good meal, and I'm sure it will be even better next time :)