Scallion Pancake

 

Scallion Pancakes 葱油饼

This seems to be the Circuit Breaker pancake to make! The ingredients are pantry staples and to be honest, you only need flour, salt, regular oil and spring onion. The fried shallot is a nice touch and the Korean sesame oil (if you are feeling indulgent) elevates the flavour and makes the kitchen smell all sorts of wonderful. It feels very daunting to make scallion pancakes, and I've not fully mastered the skill of rolling it. Practise makes perfect, and I'm happy to devour all my failed versions of my favourite pastry anyway! The trick is to have the dough rolled out as thinly as possible in the first rolling, so that you've got a big piece of canvas for all the oil and good stuff to be piled on top. That creates the layers when you shape it into a pancake.

You can also make a breakfast savoury version with egg, ham and cheese like what the Taiwanese call the Dan Bing 蛋饼. Fry up your pancake but don't let it get too crispy as it makes it hard to roll. Set aside. Beat up an egg, fry up an omelette and as it sets, lay the pancake over. Flip over to crisp up the pancake. Layer cheese, ham on top of the omelette and remove from pan. Roll, slice and eat.


Ingredients (Makes 3-4 pancakes depending how big you roll them out!)

• 200g All-Purpose (AP) flour
• 2g sea salt and extra for sprinkling 
• 110g hot boiled water
• 20-30g cold water
• 3 - 4 stalks spring onion or scallion, trimmed and cut into small rounds (or use as much as you wish)
• Oil, for brushing on pancake (I used a mix of Korean sesame oil and peanut oil)
• Fried shallot and oil (omit if you don't have this on hand, but this adds so much flavour!)
• Oil, for frying

To Make the Dough

1. Sift AP flour into a big mixing bowl. Add sea salt to combine.
2. Slowly add hot boiled water into the flour. Trickle the water in and use a pair of chopsticks to mix the flour quickly to incorporate the water into the flour. The consistency of the flour and water coming together should resemble snowflakes.
3. Once the hot water is added, add the cold water. Bring the dough together with your hands. Give it a few kneads, each time pressing the dough around the bowl to pick up the loose bits. Do this until the dough comes clean from the bowl. (It shouldn't take very long)
4. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rest for 30 min to an hour. The resting time is essential as it helps the dough to become well-rested and stretched and it will be much easier to roll out later.

Rolling the Pancakes

1. Once well rested, knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for a couple of minutes.
2. Roll it into a log and divide dough into 3 - 4 portions. Roll each portion on the table surface into a ball. Work with the first dough ball and loosely cover the remaining dough balls with cling wrap to prevent them from drying out.
3. Using a rolling pin, roll out the first ball on a floured surface as thinly as you can into a long rectangular shape. The ends of the dough tends to be thicker, use your hands to slightly stretch it.
Think of the dough as your canvas. The bigger the canvas, the more oil you can brush on it to create layers.
4. Sprinkle seat salt over the dough. Roll your rolling pin over the dough to lodge the salt in.
5. Brush the dough with oil, covering the surface and along all four ends.
6. Distribute fried shallot (if using) and green scallion all over the dough, as little or as much as you wish.
7. Roll the dough into a long and thin cigar starting from one of the two long ends. Then coil the two ends of the cigar and roll it inwards like a pinwheel.
8. Layer one over the other and press down into a small round disc. Flatten and roll out the dough into a pancake (but not too thinly).
8. Heat oil in frying oil. Fry your pancake on low-medium heat to allow the insides to cook through. Flip over when it starts to brown, staying on low-medium heat. Once the top side starts to brown, turn up the heat to medium and flip. The higher heat will push out the oil. Flip over to the other side to brown and pancake is ready!