Strictly speaking, this is not a pancake in the traditional western sense, but rather a rich, flaky flatbread that has more in common with an Indian paratha than a French crepe or a Shrove Tuesday lemon-and-sugar number. It is, however, an equally delicious way to feast on fatty foods before Lent, and a fun kitchen project at any time of year, not least because it’s never a bad idea to have a freezer full of pancakes.
A popular savoury snack throughout China and Taiwan, cong you bing are often served as a winter breakfast in the north of the country, Ken Hom reports. Eileen Yin-Fei Lo repeats the widely held belief that “no one but a chef from Shanghai should even attempt to cook” them, though that doesn’t seem to have put off the rest of the Chinese-speaking world: food writer Grace Young says she learned to make them from her Hong Kong-born mother. If you’d like to throw caution to the wind, too, here’s how to go about it.
The dough
Texture is well nigh everything when it comes to these simple flour-and-water pancakes, and I’d be hard pushed to put it better than chef and author Hannah Che, who, on her blog The Plant-Based Wok, describes them as “flaky with a crisp-thin, 酥 su exterior that crackles when you bite into it, with sheet upon sheet of satiny, translucent layers inside.”
That flaky texture is, as in pastry, created by building up layers of dough to be forced apart by the steam produced in the cooking process, though Hom’s more straightforward northern recipe in his book Vegetarian Cookery omits this step for a result that, he concedes, is “slightly doughy and heavy”, but pretty tasty nonetheless. Hom does, however, in common with many of the other recipes I try, deploy a technique known as tang, or cooked dough – only chef and influencer Liz Miu makes no mention of it. This uses hot rather than room-temperature water to scald the gluten proteins in the flour, which creates a soft, pliable, obedient dough that has none of the usual rebellious stretch and spring, and is therefore far easier to roll out than, say, pizza or other bread doughs. In my book, that’s a definite boon; though the deftly expert Miu makes the process look easy, I struggle to keep a handle on her dough, especially after 10 minutes of energetic kneading.
(We’re not looking to develop gluten here, so I don’t really see the point of this step, which is also called for by Yin-Fei Lo’s Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking Jeremy Pang of London’s School of Wok cautions: “Do not knead the dough for too long, we want it to stay quite soft”. You do, however, need to rest the dough. Like Pang and Che, I find that a longer rest gives a more reliably crisp but flaky texture, allowing the flour to absorb the liquid and the gluten to relax fully, though 30 minutes will do, if that’s all you can spare.)
For the most part, scallion pancake dough is very plain – all the flavour comes from the filling – but Yin-Fei Lo includes melted lard in hers, which she describes as “the traditional shortening”, in place of the separate, vegetable oil-based filling favoured by the others. Leaving aside my complete failure to find anyone in London who sells lard that even lists a country of origin, let alone makes any claims for the welfare of the pigs concerned (a rant for another day), I find the soft, shattering texture that the fat gives the dough less pleasurable than the slightly chewier alternatives; once fried, they’re just too rich for my taste.
The rolling
Hom just portions out the rested dough, kneads in the flavouring, rolls them out and fries, but the other recipes all call for a more involved layering method. Che helpfully condenses the different techniques she’s come across on Mandarin-language internet into six principal styles, from simply rolling the stretched dough into a sausage and curling this into spirals (as Miu also does) to something called “accordion folds”, to Pang’s double snail coil. Serious Eats’ J Kenji López-Alt goes for a double roll, which, he estimates, provides “a full 25 layers of scallion-packed, pastry delight” (though, if I read correctly, Yin-Fei Lo goes one step further with a triple roll). I find what Che terms “the scroll” the easiest to master for the best, flakiest results, but it’s worth checking out her hard work on the other options.
Miu notes that “the secret to great scallion pancakes is getting that dough super-thin”, and to make that task easier, I favour a lightly floured surface rather than a greased one, on which the dough tends to slip around unhelpfully. The thinner the pancakes, the harder they are to flip in the pan, but the easier they are to cook; Che’s 0.6cm versions cook more evenly than Pang’s 2cm numbers (more like the thicker, crunchier versions common in Shanghai than the floppier northern variety), which remain resolutely slightly doughy in the middle; not unpleasantly so, but not the result I’m after here.
The filling
As the name suggests, scallion pancakes are flavoured with scallions, known as spring onions in the UK, finely sliced to minimise the number of chunks that break through when they’re rolled out. You can just incorporate them in the dough raw with a dash of sesame oil, as Hom and López-Alt suggest, but it’s easier, and more flavourful, to make a paste (you su) with flour and hot fat, as Miu and Pang do. As Che observes, this “means oil won’t leak out when you roll the dough; it leaves your countertop a lot cleaner, and creates distinct layers in the scallion pancakes”.
Pouring hot oil on to the filling also helps to bring out the flavour of the onions, and any other seasonings you might fancy – for Miu, that means five-spice, sugar, sesame seeds and MSG, and for Pang and Che five-spice or Sichuan peppercorns; chilli flakes would also work well. Pang infuses the oil with spring onion before use, and Yin-Fei Lo suggests a similar spring onion oil for cooking, but I find to my surprise that both options leave things overwhelmingly oniony, almost like a cheap Cornish pasty – again, I think I’d prefer to keep the profile fairly plain, with the exception of a light sprinkle of Che’s zingy, slightly lemony, ground Sichuan peppercorns.
The cooking
Hom cooks his pancakes in a lightly oiled pan over a low heat until crisp, Yin-Fei Lo heats the pan over a high heat for 30 seconds, then adds a generous amount of oil and waits for it to start smoking before adding the pancake, at which point it bubbles up enthusiastically, a bit like an oily poppadom. It’s a delicate balance, as frying always is: too low a heat, and the pancake soaks up all the oil before the outside crisps and browns; too high, and the outside burns and dries out before the thing is cooked through (see also rolling them as thinly as possible). Pang and Che’s suggestion of covering the pan initially is a clever one, because it helps to kickstart the cooking process before any crisping can occur.
The finishing touches
Miu covers her pancakes with sesame seeds, chopped coriander and a delicious-looking hoisin sesame drizzle, and López-Alt mixes up a very tasty black vinegar dipping sauce that I’d highly recommend. My current favourite topping, however, is a fried egg and a drizzle of chilli crisp.
Note that these pancakes freeze brilliantly: make them up to the rolling-out stage, then layer them up between squares of greaseproof paper. Defrost (they don’t take long) before cooking as below.
Perfect Taiwanese scallion pancakes
Prep 10 min
Rest 30 min +
Cook 40 min
Makes 4
For the dough
300g plain flour
½-¾ tsp fine salt
Neutral oil, for frying
For the paste
6 spring onions
35g flour
½ tsp crushed Sichuan peppercorns, or five-spice powder (optional)
50ml neutral oil
For the dipping sauce (optional)
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp Chinkiang vinegar, or black vinegar
1 tsp finely grated fresh ginger
1 tsp sugar
Boil a kettle or pan of water. Meanwhile, put the flour and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and whisk briefly to combine. Stir in 150ml boiling water, then mix in just enough extra (hot or cold) water to bring the mix together into a dough; it should neither be dry and floury nor sticky, so adjust as necessary.
Knead briefly just until smooth and coming away clean, then cover and leave to rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes or, preferably, in the fridge for eight-ish hours.
When you’re ready to cook, finely chop the spring onions, white and green parts alike, trimming off the bases and the very tops, and put them in a heatproof bowl with the flour and crushed Sichuan pepper, if using.
Heat the oil for the paste until it’s shimmering, then pour this on to the onions and stir to make a loose paste (if need be, add more oil or flour to get the mix to this consistency).
Divide the dough into four equal parts. Put three of the pieces of dough back under cover. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the fourth piece of dough into as thin a rectangle as possible, towards the end stretching it with your fingers.
Brush about a quarter of the spring onion paste all over the top, leaving a small border around the edge.
Tightly roll one of the long ends of the dough rectangle into the middle, then repeat from the other side, so the two “sausages” meet in the centre. Press together the ends to seal, stretch slightly, then form into an S shape.
Roll up from one end into a spiral as far as the middle, then repeat on the opposite side from the other end, so the two meet in adjacent spirals.
Fold over and stack these spirals one on top of the other, then leave to rest while you repeat with the remaining pieces of dough and filling.
Starting with the first pancake, flatten it slightly, then roll it out into a thin disc.
Set a nonstick or well-seasoned frying pan over a medium heat, and just cover the base with oil. Once it’s very hot, add the pancake, then cover the pan and turn down the heat to medium-low. Leave to cook for about three minutes, until golden underneath, then turn over and repeat.
Uncover, continue to cook until the pancake is browned to your liking, then drain on kitchen paper and repeat with the remaining pancakes, adding more oil as required.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk all the ingredients for the dipping sauce, if using. Cut the pancakes into wedges (if serving as a snack) and serve with the sauce alongside for dipping.
Cong you bing: chunky and crunchy, thin and floppy – which version has your heart, how do you like to eat them, and where should we be going to try them?
