All About the Technique- Scallion Pancakes
This year for Christmas I was gifted a copy of an amazing cook book- The Wok by J. Kenji Lopez Alt. The book contains both recipes and easy-to-understand explanations of the techniques required to make each dish perfect. If you love both science and food, I highly recommend this book.
Mr. Food It Yourself is already quite skillful with a wok. I, however, do not have much skill in Asian cooking techniques. I do like pancakes, however, so I decided to try Mr. Lopez Alt’s recipe for Chinese- style scallion pancakes. The recipe uses a very interesting technique. A watery dough is rolled with an oil mixture. Since oil and water are famous for not mixing, the re-flattened dough develops the signature flakey texture scallion pancakes are known for.
The cooking web site Serious Eats posted J. Kenji Lopez Alt’s recipe (with a cool video) back in 2011, which you can find here.
The dough is as basic as can be- just 10 oz of flour mixed with 1 cup boiling water. The book suggested using a food processor to mix the dough together, but I used a combination of a spoon and my hands, as I do not currently own a food processor. My top tip for doing this by hand: be aware that the dough will be hot from the boiling water. Use the spoon as long as you can and be cautious when changing over to using hands. I covered my dough with a fabulously vintage plate to rest.
As the dough rested, I got my other ingredients ready. I sliced the scallions thin. I mixed 2 Tbl of flour with 1/4 cup toasted sesame oil. I got my rolling pin and eight-inch cast iron skillet ready to go. (Mr. Food It Yourself keeps his wok on a very high shelf where it is both out of the way and is too high for me to reach. A heavy skillet works just fine for this recipe) The next steps are where the technique is employed.
Get your skillet hot over medium heat. While that is happening, roll one quarter of the dough flat and brush it with a thin layer of oil/four mixture. Roll the dough into a log, then curl the roll into a circle, like a cinnamon bun. This creates the flake-inducing water and oil layers. Roll and oil the dough once more, and top with one fourth of the sliced scallions. Then, repeat the roll-and-curl. My first one was a little rough looking until the final roll out. Fry the pancakes one at a time until both sides are browned, 3-5 minutes on a side seems to work with my pan and my stovetop. The recipe says to put about a tablespoon of oil in the pan for each pancake, but I found mine cooked better with just a mist of pan spray.
I still have a way to go with perfecting my scallion pancake skills, but I can’t get better without practice, right? In the mean time, Mr. Food It Yourself and I will be enjoying imperfect looking scallion pancakes. I think they taste best with just the lightest sprinkle of salt. Mr. Food It Yourself likes to drizzle them with a little Korean style barbecue sauce. Contemplating this technique has my mind churning with possible variations. What if I replaced the scallions with other finely sliced veggies, like carrots, chard, or cabbage? What if I used high-quality olive oil in place of sesame oil and rolled in minced basil?
Learning a new cooking technique is a great way to diversify your DIYet. What techniques are you working on? Share in the comments!
