Korean Potato Cheese Pancake with Additional Touch of Dried Seaweed Flakes

It's a bit like Japanese cheese korokke but without the flaky crumbs, so perhaps more so a "naked" cheese korokke?

Korean potato cheese pancake with additional touch of dried seaweed flakes - 

Ingredients (about 6 pancakes)?

• 4 medium potatoes
• 125 grams mixed shredded cheese
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4 tablespoons corn starch
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dried seaweed flakes
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• Some salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

How?

Peel and cut the potatoes to medium chunks.

Prepare a pot of water and add in the potato chunks. Bring the water to a boil then lower the heat a little while still keeping the pot at a medium boiling stage. Cook till the potato chunks can be easily poked through by a chopstick, mine took about 20 minutes.

Once the potatoes are ready, drain out the water and let the steam escape a little longer.

Transfer drained potatoes to a big bowl. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper, 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter, 1 1/2 tablespoons of dried seaweed flakes, and 4 tablespoons of corn starch. Mash till evenly blended and no more potato chunks throughout.

Taste and see if more salt if needed. I actually added 1/4 more teaspoon of salt in the end. 

It's roughly 1 tablespoon of corn starch per medium/medium small sized potato. However, this might yield a fluffier pancake in the end. So remember to feel the potato mash and adjust the firmness with corn starch.

Pick up about a big palmful of mashed potato and roll into a ball. Flatten the ball a bit and add some mixed shredded cheese in the center, about 2 tablespoons per pancake. Take more mashed potato and cover the cheese filling. Seal the openings and form into a fat pancake with some thickness, make sure no cracks here and there.

Repeat till all mashed potatoes have turned into pancakes. Mine ended up with six pancakes.

Drizzle 4 tablespoons of olive oil to a non-stick pan and switch to medium heat. Wait till the surface gets hot, carefully transfer the pancakes to the pan and leave some space in between. Cook in two batches if the pan is too small.

Sear till the bottom turns golden brown. Flip and sear the other side till golden brown again.

Remove the pancakes to serving plate. I love to enjoy the pancakes when they're still hot in order to get the full oozing cheese effect in the center. 

You can adjust the "firmness" of these cheesy potato pancakes. As you can tell from the pictures, I made these pancakes on the loose fluffy side. If you add more corn starch then you'll have a firmer result.

In fact, the ones you see in Korea are almost like a puffy buns, you can easily hold up the pancakes and eat by hand. If that's preferred, I would say use 1 1/2 tablespoons of corn starch per medium/medium small sized potato instead of 1.

Other oozing cheese recipes:

• Cheesy garlic bread
• Shiso and cheese stuffed tofu in Japanese seasonings