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Jeon Is a Korean Favorite for a Reason. Here’s Why.

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Making these pan-fried fritters is a labor of love, timeless, joy-inducing and effusively Korean.

Squares of gamja jeon sit on a pale plate. A pair of chopsticks dip one piece into a sauce.
Gamja jeon, Korea’s answer to the potato pancake, is crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside.Credit…Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.

By Eric Kim

Eric Kim is a food columnist for The New York Times Magazine and a recipe developer and video host for NYT Cooking. A native of Atlanta, he is also the author of the cookbook “Korean American.”

I had never noticed jeon in my youth, not like I do now. Maybe because they were always there, at every party, holiday, Tuesday night dinner. While the mothers gathered in the kitchen to fry up brimming platters of the Korean fritters — with ingredients like meat (wanja jeon), kimchi (kimchi jeon) and cod (daegu jeon) — the fathers played cards in the dining room, drinking soju and beer, and we children ran amok upstairs playing video games. The smell in the air, fried oil, was singular.

Recipe: Gamja Jeon (Potato Pancakes)

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