hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with chinese scallion pancakes
that's right I have to admit I was pretty confused the first time I had
this since it was nothing like any pancake I'd ever had before
the outside was kind of crispy and crusty and while layered the inside was
kind of dense and a little bit oily and I wasn't exactly sure if I liked it or
not but I also can't stop eating it but anyway over the years I came to
appreciate this for what it is a very interesting very enjoyable and extremely
fun to make flatbread so with that let's go ahead get started with our extremely
simple dough which is going to start with some bread flour to which we're
gonna add some salts and then what we're gonna do is make a well in the middle
and we'll go ahead and pour in some very hot but not quite boiling water and
we'll use our wooden spoon to mix this together until it forms a shaggy dough
and as you'll notice we had way more water than would fit in that depression
we made so I guess what I'm trying to say is we made that well for nothing but
anyway like I said we'll give that a mix with our wooden spoon until everything
comes together and sort of looks like this and forms what I've already
referred to as a shaggy dough and once it reaches that point as usual what
we'll do is transfer this onto our work surface which as you can see has been
lightly dusted with the flour and we'll give it a quick but important kneading
until we formed a very sticky but relatively smooth and elastic ball of
dough and of course if you need to sprinkle a little bit of flour onto your
fingers or some more onto the surface go ahead but try to be careful not to add
too much all right I know sticky dough's are annoying to work with but if you add
too much flour to make it easier you're not gonna get as good of a texture later
so we're just gonna use the bare minimum and after a couple of minutes are
working that over you should end up with something looks like this and then what
we'll do is wrap this up and ideally leave it overnight in the fridge before
we use it although I'm not going to do that I'm gonna use the shortcut method
I've just leave it on the counter for a couple hours and we'll talk about this
on the blog but both systems will work so we'll go ahead and wrap that in
plastic and let that dough rest and while it does we'll head to the stove to
make one more key element and that's going to be an oil flour mixture we used
to paint the dough before we roll it up so into this pan we're going to add some
vegetable oil as well as some sesame oil and then just a little bit
flower and what we'll do is mix that together over medium heat and we'll wait
for that stuff to start bubbling and if you're thinking to yourself isn't this
sort of a roux and what is the Chinese word for Roux well I guess this sort is
even though we're not gonna use this to thicken a sauce and I do not know the
Chinese word for Roux although thanks to the Simpsons I do know they have the
same word for crisis as opportunity which of course is Christ's a tuna T but
anyway I've killed enough time and this is all stirred together and then all
we're gonna do is let this cook on medium until it starts to bubble which
one we're gonna cook her for exactly one minute more and that's it we'll simply
turn off the heat and let that cool down to room temp and once it is cool what
we'll do is grab a brush and we use that to brush it onto our dough once rolled
and then besides the dough in this oil mixture the only other major component
is of course the scallions Orser more commonly referred to in these parts
green onions and I tend to use mostly the green parts but if you want use the
lighter parts as well and then once we have everything prepped assuming our
dough is rested long enough we'll go ahead and unwrap it and I'm gonna go
ahead and cut mine in half because this recipe makes two pancakes and what we'll
do is take that half and go ahead and roll it out as shown and just sort of a
tube shaped like this and again just like when we made the dough we want to
use the minimum amount of flour then what we'll do once had tubes food form
just kind of press it down with our fingers before switching over to the
rolling pin and then what we're gonna attempt to do is roll this out to about
an eighth of an inch thick well at the same time achieving some sort of
rectangular shape or maybe one of those oval rectangles that we like to call a
rect oval and about halfway through I like to flip that over and apply a
little more flour and then we will complete the rolling process and I
probably err on the side of going to thin verses too thick since the thinner
we roll this at this point the more layers are finished pancakes gonna have
so keep that in mind since this is ultimately going to be up to you I mean
you are after all the Jeremy Lin of how thin but as I said I like to chew for
about an eighth of an inch or less which is what I believe I have right about
here all right so that's looking good and once that stuff's been accomplished
what we'll do is take our oil flour mixture
and paint the entire surface except I like to leave about an inch unalloyed
all the way around the outside around the outside around the outside and by
the way we just want to brush on enough to cover all right we don't want puddles
of oil on this so be thorough but not excessive and then once that said we
will proceed to scatter our scallions being fairly generous and know I did
measure how much I put down sorry that amount in the ingredients will be listed
as needed oh and I should mention if you were gonna sneak in something like red
pepper flakes or other embellishment this is when you want to sprinkle that
over and then what we'll do once our dough's been green onions start rolling
up this dough as shown and we want to do this pretty tightly so we don't get a
lot of big air bubbles and having said that we are going to end up with
hundreds of little bubbles which are fine we just don't want to intentionally
trap large bubbles of air while we do this rolling step and thanks to this
rolling along with our oil of flour mixture this is what's gonna create all
those layers you're gonna see in the final pancake and I'm not sure how well
you can see it but as we roll this closer to the opposite edge what I like
to do is start pulling the dough just a hair sort of tuck it back a little bit
as I roll to keep everything nice and tight and our dough thin and then what
we'll do once we've rolled to this point is stop and take the excess dough and
sort of stretch it over the top and of course if any of those green onions try
to escape you just stick them right back in and
then once we've gone along the length making sure that seal did not sticking
to the table what we need to do is coil this up all right so just start at one
end and sort of wind it up towards the middle and normally what I'll do is roll
it about halfway up and then go ahead and grab the remainder of the dough and
finish that coil by wrapping it around like this and then yes we are gonna talk
any excess underneath all right you saw that coming and once
that coils been formed we are almost done all we have left to do is dust this
with flour and then attempt to roll it out into about a quarter inch thickness
and if all the various things i've rolled in my life and i should specify
in regards to dough this is probably the most fun thing to roll out because of
all those trapped air bubbles in there I can't explain it you're just gonna have
to experience it but there's just something about rolling this dough out
that's strangely satisfying I guess a good analogy
would be popping bubble wrap which reminds me as you roll this yes you are
gonna press out a lot of that air but that's fine
thanks to us applying that oil flour mixture before we rolled it all those
layers have already been formed but anyway like I said we'll go ahead and
roll that out to about a quarter-inch thick and if a couple of those scallions
happen to break through the surface no big deal you could just pick them off or
leave them there really doesn't matter and then once our pancake has been
successfully rolled out we are ready to head over to the stove to cook this
which I'm gonna do in a nice hot cast-iron pan into which I drizzled a
couple tablespoons of oil and what I generally like to do here is start on
high heat to get the pan hot and then once we carefully place in our pancake
I'll back the heat down to medium and cook this for about four minutes per
side which is why you have to monitor your heat all right we don't want the
outside turning black before the inside cooks through so if you have to adjust
your heat a little bit feel free that is just you cooking so anyway I gave my
first side about four minutes and flipped it over and then gave the other
side about the same and what's kind of interesting here is one side generally
will have sort of a uniform browning but then the other side will have a lot more
contrast and you'll actually be able to see those coils and I'm never sure which
side looks better for presentation but anyway that's it
after about four minutes per side we'll go ahead and remove that to our cutting
board and before I grab a cleaver and chop this up let me go ahead and grab a
fork and make sure this sounds okay oh
yeah that sounds just about perfect so let me go ahead and cut this up and
we'll take a look inside to see what's going on and as you can hopefully see
thanks to the oil and all that rolling we've created all this beautiful
layering and it's the contrast between that moist layered oniony Center and
that crispy crusty outside which really is the magic behind the Chinese scallion
pancake and while this is tasty enough to eat as is I'm going to go ahead and
serve up a few slices next to a dipping sauce and by the way since I showed the
one side when we cut it let me go ahead and feature the other side in this
plated presentation and I'll proceed to enjoy a few more slices with this
dipping sauce which is pretty much just rice vinegar in soy sauce and a few
other things but I'll give you that recipe on the blog post so don't worry
and not surprisingly since we're talking about a fried dough but that little bit
of acidity and salt really does amplify all the flavors but anyway that's it my
take on Chinese scallion pancakes which we've done to honor Chinese New Year
which if you're watching in real time is tonight and I believe if I'm not
mistaken it's the year of the manatee or is it the year of the squirrel I forget
but regardless of what year it is I really do hope you give this fabulous
and very fun to make flatbread a try soon so head over to food wishes comm
for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy
you