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by Samuel Kim
Dragging yourself home after a rough day of work, with a lot on your mind, defeat, tiredness, and exhaustion, you crave for something sweet in your life. In the chilly seasons, some people may crave rich pumpkin pies, steaming hot chocolates, or soft cookies, but for me, the one and only food that I crave when it’s cold out is hotteok.
Hotteok is a traditional Korean dessert, especially popular as street food. It is a simple delight, toasty, yummy, and scrummy. Hotteok is made out of three main ingredients: wheat flour, honey/sugar syrup, and walnuts. Before consuming this delicate treat, you are welcomed with a fresh aroma of toasted wheat. The first bite you take, you encounter the fluffiness of the toasted bread, then instantly rush with the sweet flavor of honey or sugar syrup into your mouth. Lastly, when you take your savory bites you can taste the bits and chunks of walnut within the syrup. Be cautious, because most hotteok are filled with a ton of syrup; therefore, the syrup can easily gush out of your mouth and get everywhere.
Homemade hotteoks. November 11, 2023. By Samuel Kim.
Hotteok has been a part of my life my whole childhood growing up in Korea. I would tread two miles to and from school everyday. When the days got colder during the fall, my hands would turn cold red, but when I got home, my mother would hand me a warm plate of hotteoks. As I grabbed the plate, not only would it warm my hands, but also the whole house. Now that I live far from home in a different country, I rarely get to eat this dish, and with more stress on studying and less free time, I have grown a deeper appreciation for this food.
During the early development stages of Korea, hotteok was one of the most popular street foods. The reason behind hotteok’s popularity in Korea was because of the low priced ingredients (source). With low priced ingredients, street vendors charged low prices for hotteoks. Originally, hotteok was first introduced by Chinese immigrants during Korea’s poor economic state. After the Korean War, ingredients such as barley, wheat, and sugar were more affordable in Korea (Glazer). Because of the lovely taste and growing history of this dish, the love for this treat still grows today. Hotteok wasn’t a luxurious food where only the wealthy could enjoy and afford it, but because of the wide number of consumers, more and more families ate hotteok at their dining tables. Hotteok became the symbol for family fellowship (Pyun).
In the present day, stores have competed to make better hotteok. To master the art of making good hotteok, Korean researchers have experimented with the best amount of fermentation of dough in order to have the best volume and taste (Jeon). Hotteok is not difficult to make, however, making a good hotteok can be challenging. With a store bought hotteok mix, or with flour, all you need to add is yeast and luke-warm water for the dough. Afterwards, you can take a chunk of the dough and flatten it with your hands. After flattening, add a spoonful of honey or sugar in the dough and wrap the dough containing the honey/sugar. Then, place your dough on a hot sizzling pan and cook for five minutes. The difference in making a tasty hotteok is the amount of honey inside the pastry, the more the merrier. Currently, all over the world, people sell different flavors of hotteok. “At Jinjuu, the Korean restaurant in London that Ms. Joo ran until 2019, one of her top-selling dishes was a Snickers-inspired hotteok, with a filling of salted caramel, chocolate ganache, peanut butter and praline” (Krishna).
Just how hotteok was an important part of Koreans' history and one of the most loved foods during the early stages of the birth of South Korea, hotteok also had an impact on me in my early childhood days as well. Everyday, when I come back home from a rough day of school and feel the gentle cold breeze, I will always remember its delicious shell like a pancake and the warm syrup trapped in the treat. Hotteok has always been my favorite delight that I have and will always look forward to.
Preparing to make hotteok, my dog Milky showing off our store bought hotteok mix on November 11, 2023. Photo by Amy Kim.
Making hotteok with my mother on November 11, 2023. Photo by Samuel Kim.
Work cited
Glazer, Fern. “Asian Desserts Such as Mochi and Hotteok Enjoy Growing Appeal on Menus.” Restaurant Hospitality, Cleveland: Informa. (Missing info)
Kim, Amy. Hotteok preparation. 10 Nov. 2023. Author's personal collection.
Kim, Samuel. Hotteok making process. 11 Nov. 2023. Author's personal collection.
Kim, Samuel. Hotteok dish finished. 11 Nov.2023. Author's personal collection.
Jeon, Jae-Eun and In-Seon Lee. “Quality Characteristics and Acceptability of Hotteok with Barley Flour for Development of Representative Foods of Traditional Market.” Korean Journal of Food and Cookery Science, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 279–86, doi:10.9724/kfcs.2018.34.3.279.
Pyun, Sungchul. “Study on the Origin and Development of Hotteok – from Ssanghwajeom to Anheung Jjinppang (Steamed Bun).” The Korean Folklore, vol. 75, pp. 53–76, doi:10.21318/TKF.2022.5.75.53.
Krishna, Priya. “The Warm, Sticky-Sweet Resurgence of Hotteok.” The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/dining/history-of-hotteok.html.
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