Hotteok is a popular Korean street snack, particularly in winter! This Korean pancake is a disc-shaped dough that's filled with brown sugar and nuts before being pan-fried, though you'll often find many different flavours nowadays! Eating a warm hotteok straight off the pan is completely delightful and should be experienced by everyone. And luckily, you don't even have to go to South Korea to try it - making hotteok at home is really easy! All you need to do is make the simple dough, then once you have it ready you can fry up these beauties in no time! We have the perfect easy halal hotteok recipe so you can whip up these yummy treats at home.
Ingredients (makes 8 pieces)
For the dough:
- 250ml (1 cup) lukewarm water (you can also use milk!)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 2 tsp instant yeast
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 cups flour, sifted
For the brown sugar filling:
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp chopped nuts of your choice (walnuts, almonds, pecans, etc.)
Directions
- Add the lukewarm water in a large bowl. Add the sugar, yeast, salt and vegetable oil and mix well.
- Add the flour and mix everything together so it's well combined and formed into a dough - the dough will be quite sticky.
- Cover the bowl with a lid or cling wrap and leave at room temperature for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
- Punch the dough with your hands a few times to remove the gas bubbles. Cover the dough again and let it sit for another 10 - 20 minutes.
- In the meantime, make your filling. Combine all the filling ingredients in a small bowl and mix well to combine.
- Lightly oil your hands (so you can easily handle the sticky dough, then tear the dough into 8 equally-sized pieces.
- Take a piece of dough and using your hands, flatten it out in the palm of your hand. Put a tablespoon of the filling in the centre. Bring the edges of the dough together, pinching to seal. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough (if it gets sticky just remember to add a bit more oil to your hands so it's easier to handle).
- Heat some oil (about 2 tablespoons) in a frying pan over medium heat.
- Place 1 ball of hotteok in the pan and let it cook for about 30 seconds until the bottom is a light golden brown.
- Turn the ball over. Using your cooking spatula or any flat heavy implement that you have to press down on the dough so it flattens out into a disc shape (you can flatten it a lot for a thinner pancake, or flatten it less for a thicker pancake). Let it cook for a minute.
- Turn the hotteok over again turn the heat down to very low and cover the frying pan - this will help heat and melt the filling.
- Cook the rest of your dough balls. Best served immediately after cooking.
Note:
- Feel free to switch up your fillings! A popular savoury option is with shredded mozzarella cheese, or you can even add cooked meats like bulgogi beef, or kimchi and scallions. You can also try fillings like chocolate chips, crushed peanuts, Nutella, peanut butter or even kaya, but do bear in mind that the softer spreads melt more quickly and might ooze out of the dough (it'll still be delicious though!).
- If your pan is large enough, you can cook more than 1 piece of hotteok at a time - just remember they need space for when you flatten them.
Making hotteok is an easy process with great reward - once you have one of these warm filled pancakes you'll definitely be back for more!