scallion "pancake" 蔥油餅 - part 3

I have been looking forward to make a scallion pancake 蔥油餅 following this man's techniques. Today I bought some good scallion. I have never seen scallions this expensive before. Most are poor quality and the sellers makes the bundle smaller.
Scallion pancake 蔥油餅 is such a simple pleasure. I had made them before just from my own intuition and the result was quite good. His method is better as it imbed some oil inside the dough. I used extra virgin olive oil.

Note that the dough is unleavened. The ingredients are very simple:

• unbleached flour
• water
• salt
• scallion
• cooking oil

I used 2 cups of flour (480mL) and I estimate it would be plenty for one person

I used 2/3 cold water mixed with 1/3 hot water - the idea is just to get a lukewarm water; stirred well and then mix well with hand

let rest for 20 minutes

then kneel well with hands followed by rolling out into thin sheet; spread salt, then oil, and chopped scallion

I then rolled the dough up into a coiled cylinder. Then coiled up the long cylinder like you would a cinnamon bun. The bun shape dough is then rolled out with a roller into a thin sheet. The dough is then ready to be pan fried.

I fried it with olive oil

the diameter was just perfect with respect to the flat bottom of the frying pan

I followed him in the use of a lid but soon I decided that is not necessary as my dough is quite thin

I pride myself being very tidy and waste very little flour nor make a big mess

I flip the pancake a few times to even out the oil on both sides

this is the first side which got more oil

this is the second side which get less oil

that is one photogenic scallion pancake

yum!

the layers

What would improve the taste is the use of high quality peanut oil rather than olive oil. A bit of lard would be really good too. I can't eat this too often as starch gets one fat fast. It goes straight to the belly.

So how does mine stack up against those in Shanghai restaurant. I remember I took photos of them while in Toronto a few months ago. There were two. The first is a global chain Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐 that just open a place here in Portland, and the second one is a small place in a strip mall. The latter to us simply wins hands down against the global chain in all the dishes we had, in addition to costed a fraction in prices.

Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐 we went to in Toronto

scallion pancake 蔥油餅 at Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐; the photo attests that their food are not what people make them out to be

scallion pancake 蔥油餅 at a small Shanghai restaurant in a strip mall; it was made with much more care

here is mine scallion pancake 蔥油餅

Since the trip to Toronto I know better. I have been unexcited that Portland finally has a all Shanghai restaurant. I have not been to this local Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐 nor do I plan to. I will make a number of the Shanghai dishes in the coming days and weeks including xiao long bao 小籠包, potstickers 鍋貼, and pan fried pork buns 生煎包; all from scratch.

here is a piece of mother of all pork bellies that I bought to make xiao long bao 小籠包