Recipe: 葱油饼 Spring Onion Pancake

I don't know what the translation of the name of this dish is.  I call it Spring Onion Pancake but my "master" who taught me how to make it, a colleague from Shanghai who's also based in Midland, calls it Shanghainese Onion Pizza.  I'm biting my tongue and sitting on my fingers to avoid using that rose-by-any-name cliche thingy but try not thinking of a pink elephant and that's what's happening.  Arrrggghh eeettt taaassstteesss goooood no matter what you call it!!

Ahhhh....that feels better.

I think I first fell in love with this snack when I was holidaying in Taiwan with my hubby Leon.  Early one morning, we left our hotel near Ximending and went hunting for breakfast.  There was a line at this shop making Spring Onion Pancakes and they were selling faster than they were frying.  We each had one with soya bean milk and the pairing danced on the palette and warmed the guts.

So is this a Chinese or Taiwanese snack?  I'm not going there...  whatever lah.  If you try making this, let me know how it goes for you ok?  It's kinda lonely writing all this stuff and having only Anson and Sylvia comment every now and then (Thank you Anson and Sylvia!)

With this recipe unfortunately, there's a lot of estimation and measuring by eye...

Ingredients
4 heap Chinese soup spoons of plain flour

Ar-ga ar-ga ok?

Half a cup of water 
Another 1 heap Chinese soup spoon of plain flour
3 tablespoon cooking oil
1 bunch of spring onion
1 teaspoon of salt

I used Crisco cooking oil.  I suppose for health reason I could try using
olive oil next time and see how that taste.

Instructions
Slowly add water to the 4 heap spoonful of flour and 1/2 a teaspoon of salt and knead until dough is sticky but doesn't stick to your fingers.

It looked nothing like this in the beginning.  Gotta have faith your dough
will appear from the mess of powder and water.

Set aside.
In a bowl, mix the other heap spoonful of flour with oil and a bit of salt until you get a smooth creamy paste.  If you get to this stage before using up all the oil, don't use up the oil.

Add oil in bit by bit.

Here's how it should look when done.

 Slice spring onions and put into another bowl.
Next, take that roll of dough that you made and cut into 8 portions.

Using a rolling pin, roll each portion into a rectangular piece.
Spread that creamy flour-oil paste in the center of the rolled-out dough.

Don't roll the dough out too thinly.

Spread spring onions on top of the creamy mixture.

That's not too much spring onions.  

Roll it up. 

Clean fingers and nails please!

Tuck everything in.

Fold over the edges at the end and tuck the sides and top in nicely so it becomes a nice little package.

Neat little parcel.  "Parcel" is British English by the way.
The UPS man at the delivery collection center thought I spoke "posh" English when
I asked to collect my parcel instead of my package.

After that, stand it on its narrow end and squish it flat.  This will give it a swirly inside separated by the creamy paste and spring onion filling that you added earlier.

Hand flatten before rolling with the pin.

Then with the help of a rolling pin, flatten it further.  Be careful not to flatten so much that the dough bursts and spring onions come spilling out.  Never mind if that happens.  Just remove the spillage and seal the edges by pinching the dough together again.  
Heat a frying pan with some oil and pan fry the pancakes until crispy and golden brown.  In the photo below, you'll see the flattened dough at the top and the cooked pancakes below.

Doesn't take too long to cook.

I liked it cut in half so it's easier to eat.  And it looks prettier when you stack it.  

See how crispy it is!  It's cracking at the knife's cut!

Finally, feed it to your favorite person around and force a cheesy pose from him. Hahaaha

He went to the gym today so he can afford to eat these.

I fried only 2 pieces this evening to ensure the recipe works.  The other 6 pieces are now in the freezer and will be cooked for breakfast in the morning!