Hotteok

Taste and texture

Hotteok is a snack made by enclosing sugar, nuts and cinnamon in dough, flattening it and cooking it in a pan. As the outside turns golden, the sugar melts into a sticky filling. A sealed ball of wheat dough is pressed wider in the pan, leaving sweet filling between its upper and lower layers. Unlike pancakes with syrup poured over them, the main sweetness is inside.

One dough method uses wheat flour, water or milk, yeast, salt and a little sugar. Fermentation makes the mixed dough rise; its gas bubbles are pressed out before it is divided and filled. Both water-based and milk-based recipes exist. The dough is fermented and the sugar mixture prepared separately, then brought together before cooking.

Chapssal hotteok incorporates glutinous rice flour for a chewy texture. One actual recipe uses all-purpose wheat flour as the main flour, adds glutinous rice flour, and mixes it with yeast and water. A dough containing glutinous rice flour need not be made entirely from rice. Wheat-only dough, wheat-and-rice mixtures and premixed hotteok products are separate approaches.

The filling mixes sugar with cinnamon and chopped walnuts or peanuts. Some recipes toast nuts in a dry pan and cool them before mixing. Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and almonds can add pieces of different sizes. Before cooking, the filling is a loose sugar-and-nut mixture; after heating, the sugar melts while the nuts and seeds remain as pieces to chew.

To fill it, a portion of dough is spread in the palm, the filling placed in its center and the edges gathered and sealed. The ball is put in an oiled pan, browned underneath, turned and flattened with a press or spatula. Rather than pouring a liquid batter, this presses an already filled piece of dough into hotteok's broad, round shape.

The amount of oil also changes the cooking method. Some are cooked on both sides on an oiled griddle, while Busan-style hotteok is also described as deep-fried. A pan recipe may finish by lowering the heat and covering the pan after both sides turn golden, allowing the sugar inside to melt. Browning the surface is followed by sending heat through the dough to melt the filling.

Seed hotteok can also differ in when the seeds are added. Nuts and seeds may be mixed into the sugar before cooking, or a cooked, filled hotteok may be slit open and packed with pumpkin and sunflower seeds. With the latter method, the seeds gather visibly at the opening. Some recipes add butter to the frying oil or a little honey at the end for further aroma and sweetness.

Mozzarella is another filling option in place of the basic sugar mixture. Melted cheese brings saltiness and a stretchy texture in place of a mainly syrupy center. Savory fillings such as vegetables, kimchi and bulgogi, and green-tea dough with a different color and aroma, are also described. They vary the filling or dough within the same form of a stuffed pancake pressed in the pan.

Freshly pan-cooked hotteok has a thin, crisp outside over moist, chewy dough. Thin pressed edges coexist with thicker dough around the filling. A bite first meets the cooked dough, followed by melted sugar flowing out. Its sweetness spreads from between the dough layers rather than staying on a sugar-dusted surface.

Brown-sugar filling supplies concentrated sweetness and cinnamon adds aroma. The 'honey' in kkulhotteok is also explained by melted sugar resembling honey; basic recipes make their filling by melting sugar. Actual honey is added in some variations. Chopped walnuts or peanuts give nutty bites within the syrup, while mixed seeds provide successive small crunches.

In a hotteok cooked with seeds already inside, the nuts and seeds are surrounded by melted sugar within the dough. A version slit and filled after cooking lets you bite into seeds at the opening, followed by sweet filling and dough beneath. Butter used during cooking adds aroma to the outside, joining the nuttiness of the browned surface with the sweetness inside.

The melted filling may still be hot even when the outside seems cooler. Let it cool a little and take small bites; a paper wrapper or cup does not mean the center has cooled. Pressing it hard or taking a large bite can make the filling run out. Its syrup-filled structure makes it a snack to eat slowly, paying attention to both outside and center.

How to order it in Korea

1. Look for “hotteok” at a stall or shop, then check whether it's a variation like seed hotteok with a different filling.
2. The filling is hot, so let it cool briefly before biting in, even if it's served in a cup or paper wrap.