My grandmother makes a really mean green onion pancake, but it's a little different from the one traditionally found in Chinese restaurants. She adds yeast and proofs the dough, which results in a light and fluffier pancake. It's more like a thinner "zi ma da bing" if you've ever sampled that at a Chinese-Muslim restaurant. I love her version, but I also like the denser traditional version, which does not have any yeast.
I have never tried making green onion pancake from scratch until recently, despite numerous attempts to get my Grandma to teach me her technique. There is something about grandmothers and recipe secrecy :). Everytime I ask her to teach me, she always leaves out a critical step - for example how to proof the dough (kind of important, right?).
Since my grandma lives in SoCal, I had to find a supplier in the Bay Area and luckily was introduced to a woman affectionately known to us as "Dumpling lady" by my friend J. I originally went to her to buy just dumplings (which are excellent btw) but discovered she sold green onion pancake as well! After trying them once, I was immediately hooked.
For a quick weeknight meal, I make these green onion pancake sandwiches which the hubby and I quite enjoy:
The sandwich contains sliced stewed beef, which I purchase from a local Chinese store which specializes in stewed delicacies. It also has sprigs of cilantro and thinly sliced green onions. It's so simple and so yummy!
Last month, I finally decided to try my hand at making the pancakes myself using this recipe.
I liked this recipe because it was relatively simple and the pictures come in handy. There are also a whole bunch of "how-to" videos on youtube which did help with folding technique.
Instead of butter, I used sesame oil because I love the smell (calorie-wise I think it doesn't make a difference) and I used more green onions (1 bunch). I like my pancakes bursting with green onion goodness :).
It was a lot of work, but pretty tasty! Here's a picture of the finished product:
I didn't know there was such thing as "flour cuisine"! I thought we just liked doughy, chewy things in general.
ReplyDelete-Hubby
i didnt know that zi ma bing was chinese-muslim, no wonder fatima sells diff stuff. what else is chinese-muslim??
ReplyDeleteactually, i think chinese-muslim restaurants have it because they have a shandong influence...i think most mian shi originates from northern china, like shandong. but don't quote me on it :D...hand pulled noodles, dao xiao mian, man tou, hua juan, all that type of stuff is shandong also.
ReplyDeletethanks for reading and commenting!!!