Carp Bread or fish waffle, Bungeoppang or Taiyaki, is popular street food in Korea and Japan and usually filled with red bean paste, custard, Nutella or even ice cream. I’ve even seen a ham and cheese filling for Bungeoppang.
The exterior is fluffy, slightly sweet, and crispy, like a waffle. I love these filled with vanilla ice cream during the summer, but my favourite filling is the sweet red bean paste. It reminds me of my childhood desserts.
To end our Street Food Series, we made three different flavours: Red Bean, Vanilla Custard, and Green Tea Vanilla Custard.
You will need a special pan for this recipe and can find them on Amazon. It’s called a Taiyaki pan.
If you’re making your own filling, it’s best to make it the day before, so it has time to set and become solid. It will make it easier to add to the batter. Keep in mind the Azuki beans need to be soaked for 12-24 hours before being cooked. If you don’t want to make this from scratch, you can buy a can of sweet red bean paste at any Asian grocery store. I will include the recipe for all the custards in a separate post.
Lien will order a pan and try and make her version of this yummy street food on her own. She wants to fill it with spinach and feta!
Ingredients
2 cups cake flour
4 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons of sugar
2 eggs, beaten
⅔ cups of milk
⅔ cups of water
Neutral flavoured oil to grease your pan
Instructions
Sift your flour, salt, sugar and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Mix in your egg, milk, and water and whisk until combined. The texture should be consistent with a waffle batter.
Grease your pan; note that you will only grease your pan once. Heat your pan on low, and when hot, ladle in some batter, only covering about 40% of the pan.
Add your filling to the middle of the waffle, cover with more filling and close the pan and turn it over, cooking each side on low for 2 minutes per side. You will know when it is done when the fish easily releases from the pan and is lightly golden.
When cooked, remove the Bungeoppang and place it on a cooling rack. When the waffle is slightly cooled, use a pair of sharp scissors to remove the extra cooked batter. Serve while warm and still crispy, and the inside is soft.
Enjoy!
Note: I owe a few of these guys to my IT team at work. Don't worry; I'll get them to you!