Korean Language Blog

Korean Street Food

Posted on 16. Apr, 2009 by Ginny in Cuisine

I am craving Korean street food so badly!  Korean street food are cheap, packaged in a portable way and usually served warm. 

호떡 is a Korean pancake made of flour, water, sugar, yeast, milk, brown sugar and cinnamon.  The batter is poured on a griddle in the shape of a circle.  호떡 tastes sweet.  The filler is honey, which oozes out of the pancake when you take a bite out of it.  I like American pancakes, but it’s a little hard to take the pancake on the go.  The fact that the syrup needs to be poured on the outside necessitates a plate and a fork.  Since the 호떡 has everything inside, all you need are your hands and maybe a cardboard to hold the scalding hot 호떡.

붕어빵 are kind of like waffle cakes.  The batter is poured into a mold that looks like a fish and 팥 or red bean paste is spread over the batter, which is then covered up with some more batter.  붕어빵 is soft and crunchy (if you make it right).  Sometimes 붕어빵 is sold frozen with an ice cream filling.  These 붕어빵 are sold in convenience stores and not on the street.  For the cost of about one U.S. dollar you can get at least three 붕어빵. 

호빵 is made of rice flour with sweet bean paste.  The sweet bean paste.  They look like white, round dumplings.  My favorite are the sweet ones, but there are different kinds of 호빵.  Some have vegetables inside, while others are more creative with meat and cheese.  You can also get these at retail stores in pre-packaged cases, but I prefer them fresh off the street.  Unlike the other street food, which are fried, 호빵 is steamed with boiling water.  

This just goes to show that cheap food isn’t always terrible tasting!

Tags: street food

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