Bacon Kimchi Pancakes

Author Notes

This is the classic Korean kimchi pancake or 김치전 (kimchijeon), with a big boost of bacon!

I’m not suggesting that there’s anything wrong with the classic version, mind you. In fact, I adore Korean pancakes for their simplicity and adaptability, especially when you need to whip up a quick weeknight dinner at home. All you really need is just a bunch of vegetables, commonly cabbage, chives, or in the case of a kimchi pancake, kimchi. Then, scour through your fridge for any scrappy bits of meat, maybe some leftover slices of chicken or char siu from a weekend dinner party, a forgotten bag of shrimp at the back of your freezer perhaps, or even a half-opened pack of sausages or surimi (faux crab sticks). Whatever you have on hand, just chop everything up to size, mix it together with flour and water to turn it into a batter, and fry it up on a pan. It’s one of the simplest and most rewarding meals I first learnt to cook, so I’m not changing much here.

But over the years of making Korean pancakes, one thing that I’ve come to do is that whenever I have bacon to put in my pancakes, I’ll fry up a few strips of bacon on one side, before flipping them over, arranging them into neat rows, and pouring the pancake batter over the bacon. Then, I’ll proceed just as I would a regular pancake, browning the bottom side before flipping it over to brown the other side. So by the end of it, the strips of bacon will have ended up on top of the pancake, crispy and clearly visible, so you know that you’re getting bacon in every slice of pancake.

Flavor-wise, this tastes pretty much like any good old kimchi pancake, and the bacon on top is definitely more for aesthetic reasons. But perhaps because we eat with our eyes first, my bacon kimchi pancakes often end up tasting more bacon-y than most! —Jun