Stuffed Hot Peppers
4 servings
60 minutes
One of the most popular fast foods in South Korea is twigim: vegetables, fruits, squid, crabs and other things in starch and batter, deep-fried. It is eaten with hands, dipping in sauce. We found a very good twigim in the Moscow restaurant K-grill, a new project by Alexander Kan and Iliodor Marach. And we asked its chef Dmitry Son to share the technology.
1
Chop the beef. It should be chopped by hand for a juicier mince than using a meat grinder. First, finely chop the beef, then chop it even smaller with a cleaver and beat it for 2 minutes to make it softer. The finished mince should hold together but break into small pieces when rubbed between fingers.
- Beef: 200 g
2
Then finely chop oyster mushrooms or other Asian mushrooms, such as shiitake.
- Oyster mushrooms: 30 g
3
Finely chop a clove of garlic and leek.
- Garlic: 1 clove
- Leek: 30 g
4
Add finely chopped tofu to the minced meat. It can be chopped slightly larger than the meat and leek to maintain texture in the filling.
- Soft tofu: 20 g
5
Mix everything in a bowl, add an egg, 20 grams of flour, dry dashi broth, 2 grams of salt, 1 gram of ground black pepper, sesame oil and sweet and sour sauce.
- Chicken egg: 2 pieces
- Wheat flour: 20 g
- Dashi powder: 5 g
- Salt: to taste
- Ground black pepper: to taste
- Sesame oil: 7 ml
- Sweet and sour sauce: 25 g
6
Knead the minced meat well by hand, and when it visually becomes homogeneous, take it in your hands several times and hit it forcefully against the countertop or board to ensure all ingredients bond together. Set it aside covered with foil.
7
Cut the hot peppers in half lengthwise. Use a teaspoon to scoop out the seeds. That's where the main heat is.
8
Carefully pack 15–20 grams of minced meat into half a pepper. Most of it won't fit inside, but that's okay: the main thing is that the meat holds tightly to the pepper and doesn't separate from it.
- Beef: 200 g
9
For the batter, combine an egg, 150 ml of water, and tempura mix. Whisk everything until smooth and homogeneous. The batter should be neither too liquid nor too thick: of medium consistency to coat the peppers and stick to them.
- Chicken egg: 2 pieces
- Tempura flour: 200 g
- Vegetable oil: 500 ml
10
Coating each pepper in potato starch is necessary for the batter to stick well to the pepper later. Coat carefully, gently tapping the peppers on the table or board to remove excess starch.
- Potato starch: 25 g
11
Heat the oil to 190–210 degrees. If you don't have a thermometer at home, rely on your feelings: your hand above the oil should feel hot but not too hot to want to pull it away immediately. The oil should not be boiling — peppers will just burn in too hot oil. To check, drop some batter into the oil: if it turns golden within 2 minutes but not brown, you can add the peppers.
- Vegetable oil: 500 ml
12
Dip each pepper in batter, holding it by the stem, and drop it into the oil. When the batter starts to turn golden, the process is nearly complete. Constantly turn the peppers with tongs to ensure they are evenly fried on all sides. The entire process takes about 4-5 minutes.
13
Place the cooked peppers on a paper towel to absorb excess fat. Carefully remove the peppers to avoid breaking the batter. Drizzle the finished peppers with garlic and red pepper oil.
- Garlic oil: to taste
- Chili oil: to taste