Hotteok


Hotteok, sometimes called Hoeddeok, is a type of filled Korean pancake; it is a popular street food in South Korea.

Preparation

The dough for hotteok is made from wheat flour, water, milk, sugar, and yeast. The dough is allowed to rise for several hours. Handful-sized balls of this stiff dough are filled with a sweet mixture, which may contain brown sugar, honey, chopped peanuts, and cinnamon. The filled dough is then placed on a greased griddle, and pressed flat into a large circle with a special tool with a stainless steel circle and wooden handle as it cooks.
In South Korea, ready-made dry hotteok mix is commercially available in plastic packages. The mix also comes with a filling consisting of brown sugar and ground peanuts or sesame seeds.

Origin

It is generally believed that hotteok originated from Chinese merchants who immigrated to Korea after the late 19th century. Unlike many Chinese pancakes, which often contain savory meat fillings, today hotteok are stuffed with sweet fillings, to suit South Koreans' culinary tastes.

Varieties

The types of hotteok have been changing continuously although many favour the traditional cinnamon and peanut filling. Many variations have developed since the early 21st century, such as green tea hotteok, pink bokbunja hotteok, corn hotteok, pizza hotteok and more.
Commercially-produced hotteok products are developed and sold by companies such as Samyang, Ottogi, and CJ. Such products are designed to be cooked at home.

Nutrition

Hotteok is usually eaten during the winter season. Due to its high sugar content, a single hotteok may have as many as 230 calories.

Phrases using ''hotteok''

Koreans say "The hotteok store is burning " to refer to noisy situations. It is believed that the origin of this phrase is that Chinese merchants were considered very noisy by Koreans. If their Hotteok stores were burnt, the merchants must have talked to each other about the reason of fire, or the accidents, in the tonal Chinese language.