A few weeks ago I woke up on Saturday craving something doughy and savoury. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was specifically that I needed, so I started racking my brain for different things I could make. Then it hit me. Scallion Pancakes or more commonly known as Chong Yeow Bang in Chinese, which literally translates to Green Onion Oil Cakes (I’m more in to the green onion part).
The last time I had these Chinese pancakes was a couple of years ago when we were walking through T&T supermarket and bought them on a whim. I remember taking a bite out of one and thinking that they were bland and oily without much green onion flavour at all. So I figured I’d take a stab at making them myself that Saturday. Plus there was no way that I was going to make it to T&T, buy them, trek them home and cook them before my stomach digested itself.
Surprisingly the recipe below which was adapted from Serious Eats, takes less than an hour in total including prepping and cooking time. I lowered the amount of oil used in the recipe by cooking them in a nonstick pan. It still gave the pancakes a crispy outer shell without the extra greasiness.
I highly suggest eating these with a nice warm cup of soy milk to make a complete breakfast of carbs, protein and fats. It definitely brought me back to my childhood. Hopefully you’ll enjoy them as well.
Ingredients:2 cups all purpose flour (I didn’t use whole wheat because it wanted to keep the texture of the pancake doughy, although if you wanted to you could substitute 1/4 cup of the all purpose with whole wheat)
1 cup boiling water
2 cups green onions, chopped
Sesame oil
Salt
Preparation:Measure out flour in a bowl, add 3/4 of the boiling water and mix. Slowly add in a bit more water a bit at a time until the dough starts to come together without being overly sticky. You may need a bit more water than the initial 1 cup.
Knead the dough until it forms a smooth ball, you can do this in the bowl or on a floured countertop.
Place the dough back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap for up to 30 minutes at room temperature (or overnight in fridge if you’re making this ahead of time). This resting time allows the gluten in the dough to form giving the pancake its chewy texture.
Once the dough has rest, divide the dough in to 4 or 8 even pieces (depending on how big you want the pancakes to be) and roll each out to flatten disks.
Lightly brush a layer of sesame oil on to the top of the dough, sprinkle on a bit of salt and green onions. Roll up the disk like a jelly roll and twist in to a spiral (like making a cinnamon bun). Flatten the spiral a bit and roll it flat again (like the photos). You can repeat the previous step to increase the number of layers within the pancake.
Repeat with remaining dough.
Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat (you can use a bit of pam spray if required) and cook each pancake for roughly 2 mins per side or until they turn a light golden brown.
Serve immediately while they’re still warm, delicious with warm soy milk! Enjoy!
Makes 4-8 pancakes (depending on size)
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