1. Ingredients for Jeon (Buchimgae)

- Primary ingredients: Meat, seafood and vegetables
- Secondary ingredients: Ingredients salted and coated with flour batter or whipped egg

2. Taste evaluation

-Spicy: ☆☆☆☆☆
-Salty: ★☆☆☆☆
-Sweet: ☆☆☆☆☆
-Sour: ☆☆☆☆☆
-Original tastes of ingredients: ★★★★★

3. Introduction to Jeon (Buchimgae)

Jeon is everything coated in egg batter and pan-fried with oil. It’s also called Buchimgae.

It’s made in a similar way to pancake or pizza so it might be favorite Korean traditional food for most of foreigners.

You could use anything as ingredients so everything can be Jeon if you just add Jeon at the end of the name of ingredient. For example,

there are Kimchi-jeon, Buchu(garlic chive)-jeon,

Haemul(seafood)-pajeon and so on.

Jeon is originated from Hwajeon Nori, which refers to a tradition that people used to fry rice paste with flower leaves on them under flower plants in spring since Koryo Dynasty. In Joseon Dynasty era, oil used to be a very valuable ingredient so that Jeon, under the name of Jeonyueo, was for only royal bloods.

Twigim(fried food) is the most common food among those cooked with oil but Korean eat Jeon more often than Twigim.

It’s very simple to cook Jeon. Wash the ingredients, slice them, and mix them with a flour batter or whipped eggs. Put the oil in the frying pan and add the ingredients until they get crunchy.

When it’s done, dip it in soy sauce, a Korean traditional sauce, and eat it.

First of all, you will be able to feel the original tastes and textures of ingredients because the minimum amount of sauce is used. Plus, a little bit of oil is used that it is light and neat than Twigim.

You could eat Jeon with rice for meals or with alcoholic drinks or as snacks when you’re slightly hungry. It’s such popular in Korea that you can find it easily on the table.

Jeon is characterized by strong tastes of original ingredients so any

foreigner could enjoy it even if it’s their first try.

Pick a piece of Jeon with chopsticks, dip it in soy sauce and feel the deep taste.

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4. Kinds of Jeon (Buchimgae)

As mentioned above, various ingredients can be used so there are many kinds of Jeon.

Roughly, there are Gogi-jeon(meat Jeon), Saengseon-jeon(fish Jeon), and Chaeso-jeon(vegetable Jeon).

I’ll introduce you the most famous Jeons called Haemul-pajeon(seafood and green onion pancake), Kimchi-jeon and Saengseon-jeon(winter-dried pollack Jeon).

Haemul-pajeon contains welsh onions and seafood (shrimps, chopped squid, clams) on flour batter that looks like pizza dough on a pan with eggs on the top. This is preferred as dishes with alcoholic drinks than meals.

Second famous one would be Kimchi-jeon. You could just mix chopped Kimchi

with flour and water and pan-fry it. It’s so simple to cook that

Koreans frequently eat it.

If you can’t eat spicy Kimchi but still want to try, you should try Kimchi-jeon. Kimchi becomes flavory and softer so you’ll find it easier to eat.

Lastly, there is Saengseon-jeon(frozen pollack).

Sliced frozen pollack is coated with whipped eggs. Light taste of white fish and flavory eggs are harmonized very well.

5. How to enjoy Jeon (Buchimgae) even more

In Korea, there’s a saying ‘on rainy days, eat Pajeon with Dongdongju’. It literally means on rainy days, you should eat Pajeon with Korean traditional alcoholic drink called Dongdongju.

One of its many meanings is that you might get a little depressed on rainy days so you should have one drink and cheer up.

Dongdongju, one of Korean traditional alcoholic drinks, is synonym for Makgeolli that is currently well-known in the world. Makgeolli is made from fermented rice that gives you a feeling of refreshment like club soda and taste of grains.

Anybody can enjoy it for its alcohol percentage is low.

It doesn’t have to be Pajeon to eat it with Makgeolli because any kind of Jeon would go with it so people usually enjoy them both.

As mentioned above, there are so many kinds of Jeon. If you’re wondering what to eat, you should order Modeum-jeon(assorted Jeon).

Modeum-jeon is a dish of different kinds of Jeon. You would have an advantage of enjoying different tastes at once.

Of in case you stay at a guest house with a kitchen, you could make Kimchi-jeon yourself. All you should get is Kimchi, flour and oil at the convenience store nearby. Mix chopped Kimchi with flour and water and pan-fry it with oil on a pan.

The concentration of batter should be same with pancake batter. Very easy, huh? Guess what you have to buy? Makgeolli.

I bet it’s going to be a good memory if you have a small party with Makgeolli and Kimchi-jeon.