Kimchi Pancake

Ah, kimichi.  It’s either you like it or you don’t.  I never used to like it, that’s why I was always the odd one among us Asian friends whenever we go to Korean restaurant.  But it’s not like I never gave it a try.  I would always take a small piece and see if I can enjoy it, and sadly, I just couldn’t.  Until one day, we decided to have a breakfast potluck at work, and my co-worker announced that she was going to bring kimchi pancakes and white rice.  Oh no! I almost wanted to tell her, “can you bring Spam and eggs instead”?  I did not want to tell her that I don’t eat kimchi.  I just said, “wow, I never had that before”.   Little did I know that this will be the day that I will learn to appreciate kimchi.  So, after breakfast, I finally admitted to my co-worker, “hey, I never used to eat kimchi, but this one, I really liked it”.  She then explained to me that the kimchi she might have picked up was still fairly new.  Wait, what?!  What does that mean?  Aren’t they all just uniformly packaged in a bottle in the refrigerator section of the store?  As it turns out, she went to a Korean store where they make their own kimchi.  I then further researched this and found out about fermentation and depending on how long it sits fermenting, the flavor changes in varying degrees.  So, the longer it sits, the more fermented it tastes.  That is probably the taste that I cannot get past when I used to not like it.  And to this day, when it’s too “strong”, I still couldn’t eat it.  However, I am proud to say that I can now eat kimchi (although not too “strong”), compared to not eating it at all.  So, I want to share with you this Kimchi PancakeRecipe that opened my eyes and palette to this super food, which also is surprisingly easy to prepare.  For me, it's an all-around food, that I like eating this either for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  Enjoy!  -GG-