Recipe of the Week: Ho-ddeock (South Korea)

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Ho-ddeok is a winter street food in Korea that is slowly transitioning into year-round fare. In essence, it’s a fried yeast dumpling, flattened to a pancake, with a sticky cinnamon sugar center – and it’s delicious. 

Gwangju International Center, via Jacob Lotinga, Gwangju, South Korea

1¼ cups / 125 g plain flour

6 tbsp milk

pinch of salt

To start the yeast:

¼ tsp dry yeast

¼ tsp white sugar

2 tbsp water

Filling:

1-2 tsp cinnamon

5 tbsp brown sugar

peanut oil

1 Mix the yeast, white sugar and water and leave in a warm place to ferment for 15 minutes. Sieve the flour into a bowl, add the salt, milk and yeasty water. Mix well, cover and leave to rise for two hours.

2 Mix the cinnamon and brown sugar together for stuffing.

3 Oil your clean hand and take a piece of dough, flatten it with your hand into a circle.

4 Now take a spoonful of the filling and put it in the center of the dough. Form a dumpling by taking up all the sides and then pinching it at the top. Then roll into a ball.

5 Heat up the peanut oil in a frying pan. When hot, put in the filled dumpling ball and flatten it with a spatula. Cook to golden brown, and then flip to cook the other side.

6 When cooked, place the dumplings on a plate with paper towel on it, and serve hot.