Matchstick-thin strands of potato, not grated pulp, give this pancake an open lattice that crisps at every strand instead of the chewy pull of grated gamja-jeon. Not a drop of water is added: potato starch dissolves into the potato's own moisture and glues the strands together.
Grated raw potato is squeezed, and the liquid sits for at least 10 minutes until white starch settles at the bottom; that sediment goes back into the pulp to make the batter. Spread as thin as possible, the edges shatter like glass while the middle stays chewy. The dipping sauce is soy sauce with vinegar and minced cheongyang chili.
In the Gangwon mountain style, onion is grated right along with the potatoes and finely chopped cheongyang chili goes straight into the batter. Makgeolli is the traditional pairing.
Mild green chilies split lengthwise are stuffed with ground pork, pressed tofu and garlic and fried filling side down, which browns the meat while the pepper keeps its fresh, gentle heat. Fill each half only about seventy percent of the way, because the filling swells as it cooks and an overstuffed pepper splits open.
Shredded sweet potato, carrot, and onion bound in a thin tempura batter fry into one large round with crisp edges and sweet strands inside. Tossing the vegetables in the dry flour before any water is added is what makes the batter cling instead of sliding off.
A batter with a teaspoon of sugar in it coats thin strands of sweet potato only lightly, and the back of a spoon presses the mixture as flat as it will go in the pan. The sugar helps the edges color quickly and makes the sweet potato taste sweeter.
Fresh oysters, at their best in winter, get a very light dusting of flour and a dip in egg before frying, with chopped garlic chives added at the end. Large ones can still be underdone in the middle after the outside turns golden, and the heat goes down while they stay in the pan a little longer.
The egg itself replaces the dumpling wrapper, setting around a filling of cabbage, scallion and glass noodles in palm-sized rounds. It follows the flat egg mandu sold as a market snack, and no flour goes into it at all. The noodles are cut short to make flipping easier.
Despite the name, Gyoda furai is never deep-fried. This snack from Gyoda in Saitama is a loose flour batter spread into a 20 cm round on a lightly oiled pan, topped with long onion and thin pork, and pressed down again and again with a pot lid as it cooks. When brown spots appear on the batter it is brushed with Worcestershire-style sauce and eaten hot.
The batter is pancake mix stirred loosely with cold water. Scallions go into the pan first, then squid, shrimp and thin slices of red chili, and the batter is poured over; the scallions touching the oil turn sweet and give off the smell that makes pajeon what it is. It comes to the table with makgeolli.
Meat patties (donggeurangttaeng), zucchini, shiitake and chilies share one platter on Seollal and Chuseok tables. They all wear the same flour and egg coat, but the prep differs: zucchini is salted and blotted, and shiitake lose their stems and get flour on the inside too. Only three or four pieces of one kind go into the pan at a time to keep it hot.
Okinawans are said to have made hirayachi on typhoon days, when going out was hard, from flour, egg and garlic chives already in the house. The batter can be loosened with either dashi or plain water. Its name refers to cooking something flat, and the batter is poured in quarters into an 18 cm pan and spread thin.
Korean zucchini sliced 0.5 cm thick and salted for five minutes gives up water and tastes sweeter for it. Fried yellow in its egg coat, it turns up on everyday dinner tables as well as on holiday ancestral-rite and guest spreads.
Small flat rounds of glutinous rice dough get edible petals pressed into them while the top is still slightly sticky, so the flowers set into the surface instead of sitting loose. The flower changes the character: azalea gives a faint floral note, chrysanthemum a quieter herbal one, rose a soft sweetness. The dough itself has no sugar, so honey on the side brings sweetness and pine nuts add a resinous richness to the last bite.
In Gyoda, Saitama, okara and skin-steamed potato are kneaded with carrot, onion, flour and egg, shaped into flat oval coins and fried with no breadcrumb coating. The jelly in the name has nothing to do with dessert; it is thought to have drifted from zeni fry, or coin fry, after the koban-like shape. A Gyoda teahouse owner who served in the Russo-Japanese War is said to have adapted it from a vegetable bun of northeastern China, and it was common by the late Meiji period. The hot fritters get a brief dip in a six-to-four blend of Worcestershire and chuno sauces.
On the streets of northern China this crepe is made every morning: thin batter spread on a griddle, an egg cracked over it and smeared across, then sweet bean sauce, chili sauce, cilantro and a crisp fried wonton sheet before it is folded into a rectangle to eat by hand. Mung bean flour in the batter, alongside the wheat, gives it a nutty flavor. The wonton sheet goes in just before eating to keep it crisp.
In Gunma's wheat-loving farm villages, jiriyaki, a thick wheat pancake with green onion and sakura shrimp, was the snack eaten by hand at the work breaks at 10 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. It once cooked slowly over the ash heat of an irori hearth, and the name is said to echo the jiri-jiri sound of the batter sizzling.
Stone-ground white cornmeal and milk, with no wheat flour, egg or baking powder, make these thin Newport-style cakes with lacy, browned edges. The formula comes from a Rhode Island grist mill, and the result has little in common with fluffy breakfast pancakes or oven-baked cornbread. Cornmeal sinks in the loose batter, and without a stir before every spoonful the last cakes come out thicker than the first.
Shredded potato and kimchi are pressed into a pan or cup-shaped mold to form a thick base and rim, and the hollow in the middle is filled with mozzarella and green onion and covered until the cheese melts. The potato is rinsed only once in cold water to keep its starch, which is what holds the cup shape. Being bite-sized, they also work as party finger food.
Chopped napa kimchi and grated potato share one batter, yet the kimchi's sour, fermented tang and the potato's mild sweetness stay distinct within the same pancake. Where kimchi juice meets the pan over medium-high heat, the edges darken into a toasty crust.
Some of the batter's liquid is kimchi brine, which turns even the plain batter red and gives it a sour tang. Leftovers crisp up again almost completely in a dry pan with no oil.
These coaster-sized kimchi pancakes stand two or three to a cup and are eaten out of hand, the way they might be at a pojangmacha, one of Korea's covered street stalls. The batter is kept thicker than for a regular kimchi pancake, which stops the rounds from slumping inside the cup, and some kimchi brine goes into it as well. Soy sauce or vinegared gochujang comes alongside.
Pork shoulder turns an ordinary kimchi pancake into something more filling. The meat has to be sliced thin and small; larger pieces stay raw in the middle while the outside burns. The kimchi is squeezed only lightly, leaving a little juice behind, and it seasons the pancake well enough that no soy dipping sauce is set out.
Wavy ramen strands leave ridges and pockets across the surface of this pancake, and those uneven spots fry up especially crunchy. The noodles are boiled for only two minutes so they stay firm; the heat of the pan finishes them and they keep their spring instead of collapsing into the batter.