Hotteok 호떡

So I'm suddenly craving hotteok 호떡. You may not know what it is....well it is a popular street food in Korea and is usually eaten in Winter. Which is perfect for now because it is cold.

The dough for hotteok 호떡 is made from wheat flour, water, milk, sugar, and yeast. The dough is allowed to rise for several hours. Handful-sized balls of this stiff dough are filled with a sweet mixture, which may contain brown sugar, honey, chopped peanuts, and cinnamon. The filled dough is then placed on a greased griddle, and pressed flat into a large circle with a special tool with a stainless steel circle and wooden handle as it cooks.

It is sort of like a pancake with fillings...if you want to put it that way. It is apparently best not to indulge in this snack because of its high sugar content...but I have a sweet tooth so it is sort of inevitable that it will happen.

My fingers are getting colder and colder, so I'll move on to giving you guys the recipe for this snack.

Ingredients
2 3/4 – 3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 cup milk (low fat or full)
Filling
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Method
1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together 2 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, salt and sugar. Stir in milk and mix until smooth. Gradually add in the remaining flour until dough is very stiff.
2. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and gently knead until dough is just barely tacky to the touch, and feels fairly smooth and elastic (about 1 minute).
3. Shape dough into a ball, cover it with a clean dish towel and let rest for 15 minutes.
4. In the meantime, combine all filling ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
5. Once rested, divide the dough into 6 equal pieces.
6. Work with one piece of dough at a time. Roll it out on a lightly floured surface into a circle about 5-6-in. wide. Place 1 tbsp filling in the center of the dough, then bring up the sides and pinch them together around the filling to seal tightly.
7. Roll out the dough ball with filling inside, lightly flouring both the surface and the rolling pin to ensure that nothing sticks and tears open the dough, until you have a disc about 1/4-inch thick. Slightly thicker is ok, but the cake should be quite thin. Repeat with all remaining pieces of dough.
8. Put about 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a large pan and turn up the heat to medium-high. When oil is hot, place 1 or 2 of the hotteoks (depending on the size of your pan) in the pan and cook until golden brown. Turn once, then cook the second side until it is golden brown as well, about 3-5 minutes overall.
9. Repeat with remaining hotteoks.
Serve hot.



I hope you guys enjoy that snack. And I'll be back with another recipe next week. I promise to make it Korean (: