A recipe for a rainy day

Kimchi pancakes from Chae: Korean Slow Food for a Better Life by Jung Eun Chae

I love the idea of situational recipes that take you beyond seasonality. Dishes for a bad day at work, for a first frost, or for a Wednesday in August when you’re a few weeks off your birthday and contemplating ageing. Rainy day recipes could be a cookbook all of its own (edit: a quick Google tells me it already is) and one that would fit with this last week. It’s been, to put it lightly, pissing it down here. I’ve written before about the joy of rain and while I’ll not harbour a grudge against winter rain (it fills the tanks) I will against the leaky gutter that has been on my to-do which, as it leaks in full sight of the front windows, shouts guess who didn’t fix me.

I’ve been reading Chae: Korean Slow Food for a Better Life by Jung Eun Chae (extract below) this last week and commented in my weekend newletter that my love of Korean food isn’t matched by my knowledge and that I’m hoping that Chae’s book will put a dent in that. One dish that I’d happily have in the rainy day locker is kimchi jeon. Not least because it comes with it’s own drinks match.

Chae: Korean Slow Food for a Better Life by Jung Eun Chae, published by Hardie Grant Books. In stores nationally from 30 July 2024. Photography by Armelle Habib.

KIMCHI PANCAKES

Kimchi-jeon 김치전

SERVES 4

I am not sure why, but most Koreans have jeon (pancakes) with makgeolli (cloudy rice wine) on rainy days. My mum is also fond of making jeon, especially when coming to the end of a batch of kimchi, because the sourness of well-aged kimchi works so well with pancakes.

There’s also a tradition of jeon and makgeolli on the way to mountaintops. When I was a child, we would sometimes go to the mountains near my mum’s place. On the road, there’s a huge place for pancakes and rice wine. Wherever you have it, the combination of kimchi-jeon made with tangy kimchi and a bowl of icy cold makgeolli is an extraordinary flavour parade that you must try!