Nokdu Bindaetteok (Mung Bean Pancake)

Bindaetteok, also called binja-tteok or nokdu-jijim, is made by grinding soaked mung beans (nokdu) on a millstone and frying the batter like a thick pancake. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture classes it with the jijimgae or buchimgae — pancakes made by mixing ingredients into a batter and pressing them flat in an oiled pan, rather than coating sliced foods in flour and egg.

The name has several competing explanations. One traces it, through binja-tteok, to an older Chinese-derived word for a griddle cake; the scholar Choe Nam-seon suggested a Chinese pronunciation, bingja, as the source. Another reads it as binja (貧者), "the poor," from the idea that pancakes once used as a base for stacking fried meat on ritual and banquet tables became a filling dish for poor households. A third links it to Jeong-dong in Seoul, nicknamed Bindae-gol for its bedbugs (bindae) and said to have been full of pancake sellers. There is also a story that in famine years wealthy households fried these pancakes and handed them to refugees gathered outside Namdaemun gate.

Early recipes were sweet. The 17th-century Eumsik dimibang (also known as Gyugon siuibang) describes frying spoonfuls of hulled mung bean batter, adding a filling of honeyed red bean paste, and covering it with more batter; the early-19th-century Gyuhap chongseo adds pine nuts and jujubes to make a flower-like cake. The modern savory pancake, salted and mixed with meat and vegetables, is a later development.

Bindaetteok is strongly identified with the northwest. The encyclopedia lists nokdu-jijim among the dishes of Pyeongan Province and nokdu-binja among those of Hwanghae, and notes that Pyeongan-style bindaetteok is about three times the size and twice the thickness of the Seoul version. The Korean Food Promotion Institute adds that in the northwest it was everyday home food as well as a dish for guests. In Seoul it is now synonymous with Gwangjang Market, where stalls grind mung beans on millstones and fry pancakes with kimchi, bracken and pork to order.

• Legume base: mung beans are rich in folate and supply plant protein, fiber, iron and potassium, so the pancake is more nourishing than a flour batter.
• Vegetables and kimchi: sprouts, green onion and kimchi add volume, fiber and vitamin K.
• Naturally wheat-free batter: the batter is made from beans, not flour, though soy sauce in the seasoning and dip usually contains wheat.

• Pyeongan and Hwanghae: large, thick pancakes — in Pyeongan about three times the size of a Seoul bindaetteok — known locally as nokdu-jijim or nokdu-binja.
• Gwangjang Market, Seoul: millstone-ground mung beans mixed with kimchi, bracken (gosari) and ground pork, fried crisp in plenty of oil and served with soy sauce and sliced onion.
• Home style: often lighter on meat, with mung bean sprouts, green onions and well-fermented kimchi; a little glutinous rice is sometimes ground with the beans for chewiness.
• Historic sweet bindaetteok: the Joseon-era version with honeyed red bean filling, pine nuts and jujubes survives mainly in cookbooks and reconstructions.