Street Food · 8 of Grills · Eight of Grills

Bindaetteok

Bindaetteok (Mung Bean Pancake) · 빈대떡

Difficulty: Medium
Time to plan: At least 4 hr soaking + prep and frying
Serves: 2 servings (3장)
Recipe: 5 steps
Listed places: 2

Food notes and context

Bindaetteok uses soaked, ground mung beans as its pancake base. This recipe adds sprouts, kimchi and minced pork, making their proportions part of the texture as well as the beans themselves.

Its bean base distinguishes it from pajeon, while a meat patty centers meat instead. At a market, check the pancake’s size and whether it is freshly cooked; test the dipping sauce on a small piece first.

Cook this version

Images are AI-generated illustrations, not records of a kitchen test. Follow the written ingredients and steps. Ingredients and substitutions guide

Prep: Grind soaked beans and prepare the filling
Cook: Cook each batch through
Wait: Bean soak: at least 4 hr
Ready in: At least 4 hr soaking + prep and frying

This starts from dry peeled mung beans, not already soaked beans. Pan size and batch size change the frying time.

Ingredients (2 servings (3장))

Ingredient	Amount	Substitute abroad
Peeled split mung beans	2 cups	Korean grocers online; soak overnight
Mung bean sprouts	1 handful	Blanched before use
Well-fermented kimchi	1/2 cup	Close to mandatory; Korean grocers
Ground pork	100 g	Omit for a clean vegetarian version
Scallion and garlic	1 stalk scallion, 1/2 tbsp garlic	Anywhere
Salt and pepper	A little	Anywhere
Cooking oil	Very generous	Half-fried is the idea, not pan-kissed

Step by step

1.Soak and grind the beans
Soak the peeled mung beans four hours or more, then grind thick in a blender or stone mill, adding water bit by bit.
2.Mix the filling
Fold the blanched sprouts, chopped kimchi, seasoned pork, scallion, and garlic into the ground beans and season with salt.
3.Fry it thick
Pour oil into a hot pan until it pools, then ladle on the batter and spread it thick.
4.Flip and cook through
When the underside sets golden, flip and press until the center cooks. Fry until the edges crackle. Check the pork-containing center with a thermometer for at least 71.1°C/160°F. Lower the heat and continue cooking if the outside browns before the center is ready.
5.Serve with kimchi on top
Serve with a soy dipping sauce, laying a piece of kimchi on each bite.

Before you start, and if it goes wrong

Plan the bean soak and drain the sprouts and kimchi. Check the first pancake’s thickness before cooking the remaining batter.

Batter spreads too far: Use less grinding water next time. Test the current batter in smaller pancakes and check that each cooks through.
Crisp outside, underdone center: Lower the heat and continue cooking, making the next pancake thinner. Still check the ground-meat center with a thermometer.

These are editorial suggestions based on the recipe steps, not results from our own kitchen tests. Check the food’s condition as you apply them.

Measurement, doneness and storage references

Make your cooking notes

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Your notes

Places to check when planning a meal

Candidates to investigate for this food. Maps use sourced location records; confirm the current menu, opening and booking directly. This list is not a tasting review or an award certification.

Yeolchajip

Gongpyeong-dong, Jongno, Seoul

서울특별시 종로구 종로7길 47 (공평동)Checked 2026.08.09

Public-record location check, not a live opening-hours guarantee. Confirm with the restaurant before visiting.

Location source 1

Directions Naver Map

Sunhuine Bindaetteok

Gwangjang Market, Jongno-gu, Seoul

서울특별시 종로구 종로32길 5 (종로5가)Checked 2026.08.09

Public-record location check, not a live opening-hours guarantee. Confirm with the restaurant before visiting.

Location source 1

Directions Naver Map

The fictional face of this dish

Earth element · a round, full face

You grow savory on your own strength, no fancy ingredients required. Humble as the smell of market-alley oil, and just as long-remembered: the quiet power of the common table.

Upright: No reason to shrink over an empty pocket today. A handful of mung beans and a ladle of oil set a table no king would refuse. Open the board with exactly what you have.

Reversed: Seared outside, raw inside. Stop spending all the oil on what looks good to others and finish cooking your own center today.

The K-Roast take: Grandma's roast

Fictional food metaphors inspired by traditional face-reading, not measurements of your face or personality.

That forehead is compact and firm. A narrow Palace of Career means the self-made face that lives by its own fingertips, owing nobody. Bindaetteok is exactly that: in the days without meat, someone ground mung beans on a millstone and built a flavor that envied no roast. You too set up boards with whatever is on hand while others blame their capital. That skill is what straightened your fortune.

That nose is plump and lucky: a storehouse face. Generous nostrils gather people and money. Do you know why the market pancake stalls always have a line? Everyone knows that for small money you leave full, warm to the heart. Your side is that kind of seat. But even a generous storehouse keeps a ledger. While you are ladling out, keep count of the affection never repaid.

That chin is thick as a millstone. A solid chin means a sturdy old age. Bindaetteok is no trend food: sixty years ago and today, it sizzles in the same spot with the same sound. Your life, too, is a board completed not by one jackpot but by the steady turning of the stone. Envy the ones who flash and fade if you like, but the one still smelling savory at the end is you.

That old song, 'no money? go home and fry bindaetteok', got it half wrong. Bindaetteok is not poverty, it is deep strength. The hands that turned a bare pantry savory are your inheritance, so hold your head up and keep frying.
Grandma's blessing

Table compatibility

Makgeolli rinses your oily savor with its easy country manner, the market alley's own match. Squeeze onto the formal tteok-galbi table and your working-class cheer starts minding its manners, so play in the market where your heart is easy.