Bindae-tteok (Mung Bean Pancake)

Variations

• Pyongyang style versus Seoul style: the Pyongyang version is thicker and larger with a simple filling, leading with the taste of the bean; that is what the stalls in Seoul's Gwangjang Market sell. Further south they get thinner, with more kimchi and more meat.
• Nokdu-jeon: the same thing under another name. It is widely said to descend from the older "binja-tteok", though the etymology is not settled.
• Without meat: kimchi, bean sprouts and bracken alone make a complete one. It is how temples serve it, and mung beans carry enough protein that nothing feels missing.
• How it differs from kimchijeon, gamja-jeon and haemul-pajeon: those three stir ingredients into a wheat-flour batter. Bindae-tteok has no flour — the ground bean is the batter — so it is closer to shallow-frying than to griddling, and the crumb is loose and sandy rather than chewy. Gamja-jeon is the nearest of the three in that it also grinds its main ingredient, but potato starch binds and mung bean does not.
• What to drink with it: makgeolli, and not much else. It sits at the centre of the rain-day-jeon-and-makgeolli habit, and turns up on a table beside jeyuk-bokkeum or kongnamul-muchim.
• Leftovers: two days in the fridge. The microwave makes them limp; a dry pan or an air fryer, no oil, brings the crisp back.
• Mung bean elsewhere: ground and set, the same bean becomes cheongpo-muk, a jelly in the same family as dotori-muk.

Tips

• No flour. That single fact is the whole difference from every other jeon. Flour makes it easier to handle and the moment it goes in you have a pancake with mung beans in it rather than a bindae-tteok. If fragility worries you, two tablespoons of glutinous rice flour is the limit (choosing flour).
• Get the skins off. Mung bean skins do not break down in the blender; they stay as flecks that roughen the texture and cloud the colour. Buying skinned split beans removes the step entirely.
• Soak at least four hours. Underhydrated beans bounce around the blender instead of grinding. In summer soak them in the fridge so they do not sour (soaking).
• Grind it coarse. Taken smooth, it becomes an ordinary batter and there is nothing left to tell it apart. Half-broken grains you can feel between the teeth are the point of the dish.
• Water in the filling decides everything. Bean sprouts and kimchi that went in unsqueezed give their water back in the pan; the batter spreads and tears as you turn it. Ten seconds of squeezing changes the result.
• Do not economise on oil. Enough to stand 3-4mm deep. A pancake this thick is really a shallow fry, and with too little oil the outside stays soft while only the inside cooks (deep-frying, cooking oils).
• Medium heat, and give it time. High heat burns the surface while 1.5cm of centre stays raw. Five minutes a side, unhurried (heat control).
• Never press it down. Pushing with the turner drives out the air and compacts the crumb into something dense. Lay it in and leave it.
• Turn it once. Repeated turning breaks a face that has not set. Not touching it until the edge is deep brown and firm is the whole technique (browning and Maillard).
• Add oil after turning. The first side has absorbed what was there, so without more the second side is being cooked in a dry pan. Pour it down the side of the pan.
• Drain on a rack. Stacked on a plate, the bottom one steams itself limp. A few seconds decides how crisp it stays (serving temperature).
• Be generous with the vinegar. It is rich and thick, so it needs acid to keep being eatable. Three parts soy to one of vinegar is the benchmark; chilli flakes and chopped spring onion make it the market version (balancing flavour, vinegar).