These Korean mini meat patties are egg-battered and pan-fried. They’re properly gentle, moist, and scrumptious!
What’s wanja jeon?
On conventional holidays resembling Chuseok (mid-autumn pageant) and Seollal (New Yr’s Day), most Korean houses make a number of forms of jeon (전) dishes (pan-fried battered meals) for his or her vacation feast. Wanja-jeon (완자전) is among the many widespread selections. It’s additionally referred to as gogi-jeon (고기전).
Meatballs are referred to as gogi wanja (고기완자) in Korean and utilized in many conventional dishes resembling soups or sizzling pots. When they’re egg-battered and pan-fried, they’re referred to as wanja-jeon. To make jeon, the meatballs are gently pressed into mini patties.
As a baby rising up in Korea, I cherished these little egg-battered meatballs. We referred to as them by their humorous nickname – dong-geu-rang-ddeng (동그랑떙), which means “a spherical factor”. I do know it’s arduous to pronounce, however it’s a type of phrases that makes you smile when mentioned or heard. They had been a favourite for packing within the college lunch packing containers. Meat was a luxurious in Korea again then, so it was at all times a particular deal with to have a number of of those meatballs with a meal.
Get pleasure from it in your vacation desk or just as an appetizer or facet dish with any Korean meal. They’re additionally scrumptious merely with a bowl of rice and kimchi.
Substances:
- floor beef and pork or use all beef or all pork
- tofu
- onion
- carrot
- scallions
- minced garlic
- sesame oil
- salt and pepper to style
- eggs
- flour
- oil for pan-frying
Mushrooms are additionally nice in these meat patties.
To attain a easy texture, take further time to finely chop the greens and blend all of the components very nicely by hand. You should use a mini chopper if accessible.
Make about 1-inch meatballs by rolling the meat combination between your palms. Then gently press to flatten. When able to fry up, dredge in flour and dip within the egg wash earlier than including to the preheated pan for pan-frying.
The meat patties could be ready forward of time and pan-fried on the day of serving.
Variations
The meat combination on this recipe will also be used to make forms of stuffed jeon resembling kkaennip jeon. You too can stuff different greens resembling chili peppers, zucchinis, and mushrooms.
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This recipe was initially posted in Sept 2014. It’s been up to date right here with new photographs and minor enhancements to the recipe.
