Bindaetteok

the mung bean pancake of Gwangjang market: soaked beans ground coarse on a stone mill, worked through with pork, aged kimchi, and bracken, and shallow-fried in a generous pool of oil until the edges lace and crisp

Origin: South Korea

From the journey of Mung Bean.

Korea took the mung bean from China and built more on it than anywhere outside India. Nokdu, the green bean, is ground wet rather than milled dry, and the resulting coarse batter is the basis of bindaetteok, a thick savoury pancake of Pyongyang origin that is amongst the most substantial things in the Korean repertoire. The name's history is unusually well attested and rather sad: the earliest form, binjatteok, is generally understood as the cake of the poor, and seventeenth-century accounts describe the wealthy of Seoul distributing them at the city gates to the destitute during famines, the pancakes laid out under the giver's name. It became festival and memorial food, appearing on the ancestral jesa table, and it is now most associated with Gwangjang market in Seoul, where the beans are still ground to order on stone mills set at the front of the stalls and the pancakes fried in cast-iron pans in an inch of oil, eaten standing with makgeolli. The essential technique is that the batter is coarse: the beans are ground only until broken, not smooth, so the finished pancake has an audible grain and a crumbly, almost sandy interior beneath a crisp lacy edge. A smooth batter gives something closer to a crêpe and misses the point entirely.

Ingredients

Batter

300 g dried split or whole mung beans, skins preferably removed
2 tbsp cooked short-grain rice (optional, for binding)
180 ml cold water, approximately
1 tsp fine salt

Filling

200 g well-fermented kimchi, squeezed dry and chopped
150 g minced pork or thinly sliced pork belly, chopped
100 g mung bean sprouts, blanched 30 seconds and squeezed dry
60 g cooked bracken fern (gosari), chopped (optional but traditional)
3 whole spring onions, sliced
3 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp sesame oil

To Cook

150 ml neutral oil, for frying

To Serve

3 tbsp soy sauce mixed with 1 tbsp rice vinegar and sliced chilli, to serve

Method

Soak the mung beans in plenty of cold water for at least 6 hours. If using whole beans with skins, rub them vigorously between your palms and pour off the floating skins, repeating until most are gone. Drain well.
Grind the drained beans with the cooked rice and just enough water to move the blades, stopping whilst the mixture is still coarse and grainy, with visible fragments. Stir in the salt.
Squeeze the kimchi hard to remove its liquid and chop it. Combine it with the pork, blanched sprouts, bracken, spring onion, garlic, and sesame oil, then fold the whole filling through the ground bean batter.
Heat a generous 5 mm depth of oil in a heavy frying pan over a medium heat. Drop in a large spoonful of the mixture and flatten it to a round about 12 cm across and 1 cm thick.
Fry for 4 to 5 minutes until the underside is deep golden and the edges are crisp and ragged, then turn once and cook a further 3 to 4 minutes, pressing down lightly. Drain briefly and serve hot with the soy and vinegar dip.

Notes

Use split hulled mung beans if you would rather not deal with the skins; the result is indistinguishable and it is what most cooks now do. Gosari, cooked bracken fern, is sold ready-prepared by Korean grocers and gives a distinctive woody chew that is worth having, but the pancake is perfectly good without it. For a vegetarian version, leave out the pork and increase the sprouts and kimchi, checking that the kimchi contains no fish sauce or salted shrimp. Bindaetteok is a drinking food above all and its natural companion is makgeolli, the cloudy unfiltered rice beer. Do not confuse it with nokdujeon, which is essentially the same batter cooked as smaller thinner rounds, or with pajeon, which is a wheat-flour batter entirely.

The Gastrographer

Name: Bindaetteok
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 7 h
Yield: 4
Cuisine: South Korea
Ingredients: 300 g dried split or whole mung beans, skins preferably removed; 2 tbsp cooked short-grain rice (optional, for binding); 180 ml cold water, approximately; 1 tsp fine salt; 200 g well-fermented kimchi, squeezed dry and chopped; 150 g minced pork or thinly sliced pork belly, chopped; 100 g mung bean sprouts, blanched 30 seconds and squeezed dry; 60 g cooked bracken fern (gosari), chopped (optional but traditional); 3 whole spring onions, sliced; 3 clove garlic, finely chopped; 1 tsp sesame oil; 150 ml neutral oil, for frying; 3 tbsp soy sauce mixed with 1 tbsp rice vinegar and sliced chilli, to serve

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control