Scallion Pancakes

I have a guilty pleasure. I am not a huge fan of the Chinese take-out places, but whenever I go – I have to get one thing. Scallion pancakes. I shared an order with the family just the other night. But lately. every time we pick up these little greasy triangles from our local dive, I am left feeling a bit cheated. By the time it gets to our table, it is often lukewarm and chewy or soggy. Because it’s usually late on a Thursday night, it never tastes like it’s fresh or like someone cared how it tasted. I also thought about the price tag. It’s flour, water, scallions and oil people. It shouldn’t cost $5 for what amounts to two pancakes!

I have been wanting to make my own for a while. It’s really easy – a similar process to making paratha or malawach. It’s pretty quick and definitely worth your while.

Scallion Pancakes
Ingredients:

2 3/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup very hot water
kosher salt
a bunch of scallions – about 5
vegetable oil

Pour the sifted flour in to a large bowl.

Pour the hot water in to the flour while stirring.

Mix with a wooden spoon until you have some semblance of a dough.

Sprinkle your hands with flour and knead the dough until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Cover the dough with a damp towel and let sit for 30 minutes.

While the dough is resting, you can wash and chop your scallions.

Cut the dough in to 4 equal pieces.

Lightly brush oil on to a rolling board.

Roll out one of the pieces of dough. It should be very thin. Roll it out in to a rectangle.

Brush the dough with some vegetable oil.

Sprinkle the dough with some kosher salt and some of the chopped scallions.

Roll up the dough in to a long snake.

Cut the dough snake in half.

Coil the dough snake in to a round snail.

Roll out the snail in to a pancake.

Fry the pancake in a small amount of oil. Lightly brown on both sides.

Drain and slice in to wedges. Repeat the process with the other balls of dough or you can chill in the fridge and use later. You could also process up until the raw scallion pancake stage and freeze for later use.

Serve with a soy ginger dipping sauce (soy sauce, chopped/mashed ginger, chopped garlic and some rice vinegar). Enjoy!