Bindaeduk Cho Kanjang - Korean Pancakes featuring Mung Beans

One of the side delights in growing staple crops is exploring how to use them in the kitchen. Mung beans do well in our garden and I love growing them with their stout stature and slightly fuzzy little pods. These nutritional little nuggets from the bean family are typically sprouted or used whole in side dishes. While I do enjoy them this way, I wanted a way to showcase them as a main ingredient which lead me to discover Bindaeduk Cho Kanjang, Korean Mung Pancakes with Dipping Sauce (that and a culinary newsletter I subscribe to offered that it is traditional to eat pancakes on Leap Day and suggested this dish in its batch of recipes.)

These pancakes are wonderfully simple to prepare and easy to accommodate personal preferences; for example, the original recipe called for the inclusion of pork – I left it out without any diminishing of yumminess. Scott exchanged the soy and vinegar dipping sauce for our sorghum syrup on some of his pancakes with delicious result. Instead of cooking them in inches of cooking oil, we cooked them on our cast iron round skillet for a satisfyingly crispy dish – in short, yet another keeper recipe featuring a fabulous fabaceae from our pantry.

Recipe Ingredients – makes about a dozen pancakes, depending on size

• 1 cup dried mung beans, soaked overnight and drained
• ½ cup kimchi, drained and finely chopped plus ½ cup kimchi pickling liquid
• ¾ cup mung bean sprouts, roughly chopped
• 4 scallions, cut into 1" pieces
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 ts. salt (I omitted this because of the salty dipping sauce)
• optional: 2 oz. boneless pork loin, trimmed and finely chopped

Dipping Sauce

• ¼ cup soy sauce 1 tbsp. white vinegar

Oil for cooking at a suggested 2 inch depth – we opted to use our cast iron round skillet brushed with butter and a bit of bacon grease instead

Preparation

1. Combine soy sauce and vinegar for dipping sauce.
2. Combine kimchi, kimchi pickling liquid, sprouts, scallions and garlic into a large mixing bowl (add salt and pork if using.)
3. Purée mung beans with water – I did this in the blender starting with about a half a cup of water, gradually adding water to keep the blades moving until the purée was the consistency of a smoothie.
4. Transfer the purée to the bowl with the other ingredients and stir until well combined.
5. Cook in batches using ¼ – ½ cup purée per pancake (size according to preference.)
6. Cook 6-8 minutes (depending on size), flipping as needed, until both sides of pancake are a golden crisp.
7. Serve with dipping sauce (or sorghum syrup, or apple butter, or sour crème... )
8. Enjoy!