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scallion pancakes, perfected
Feb. 21st, 2021 12:51 pmI've been making scallion pancakes regularly for a while now and feel like I have got the recipe dialed in. The style of this recipe is pretty similar to the one I started with, but the process has gotten pretty different as I've made many tweaks and explored the space of flour types, ratios, rollouts, fats mixed into the dough or for rolling or for frying, frying temperature, and the precise maximum amount of scallions that a pancake can hold before they escape.
330g (2.5 to 2.75 cups) pastry flour, or a mix of pastry and AP (but use pastry flour, not AP, for dusting your work surfaces if you can, since the dusting flour doesn't get denatured by the hot water). Pastry flour makes the dough more difficult to work with and it will be tricky to get the final rollout to stay in one piece long enough to fry, but I find it's worth it for the flaky goodness. The more AP you add to the mix, the chewier, less flaky, and easier to work it will be.
1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt, if I remember which a lot of the time I don't
1 cup not quite boiling water -- I boil this in my kettle and then the thermal mass of my glass measuring cup lowers the temp to where I want it
You will need small amounts of flour for each following step, especially if it is humid, but not nearly as much as if you start with a 2:1 by volume ratio of flour to water as some recipes do.
Mix together in a medium sized bowl with a wooden spoon until it forms a shaggy dough. Knead until it is nice and smooth -- five minutes for AP flour, less for pastry flour. Rest in the fridge, covered, for at least an hour and usually overnight.
Chop small:
2 cups of scallions (erring on the side of too many).
You will also need at this point:
2 tablespoons duck fat (if you don't have duck fat or want to be vegan, sesame oil also works well)
Divide into six pieces by weight (usually each piece is about 3.25 oz). Roll out each piece (size of the rollout is not critical at this step but I usually aim for 7-8 inches) and brush with 1/2 teaspoon duck fat, leaving the fat off the inch of dough furthest away from you. Roll up and coil each piece, form into a patty, and go on to the next piece before doing the next step (for me, this results in each piece getting a 10-15 minute rest at room temperature).
Re-roll, brush with another 1/2 teaspoon duck fat, and add 1/3 cup scallions, also leaving scallions off the inch of dough furthest from you. Roll up, coil, form into a patty, and refrigerate in a small bag or plastic wrap to rest for another hour or more (but try to use them all up within a day or two, they don't last forever.)
Roll out a final time to a diameter of about 8 inches and fry in canola oil, flipping several times (at the oil temps i like, every 45 seconds) rather than waiting for each side to be done. The hotter the oil, the chewier the pancakes will be. 410F / 210C is not too hot.
I don't like my sauce sweet, so I make a dipping sauce of 1 part sesame oil, 4 parts white rice vinegar, 10 parts tamari, dash of hot mustard powder, and a bit of grated fresh ginger. This is easiest if you do the oil first, so that you can pour some back in the bottle if you overdo it.
330g (2.5 to 2.75 cups) pastry flour, or a mix of pastry and AP (but use pastry flour, not AP, for dusting your work surfaces if you can, since the dusting flour doesn't get denatured by the hot water). Pastry flour makes the dough more difficult to work with and it will be tricky to get the final rollout to stay in one piece long enough to fry, but I find it's worth it for the flaky goodness. The more AP you add to the mix, the chewier, less flaky, and easier to work it will be.
1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt, if I remember which a lot of the time I don't
1 cup not quite boiling water -- I boil this in my kettle and then the thermal mass of my glass measuring cup lowers the temp to where I want it
You will need small amounts of flour for each following step, especially if it is humid, but not nearly as much as if you start with a 2:1 by volume ratio of flour to water as some recipes do.
Mix together in a medium sized bowl with a wooden spoon until it forms a shaggy dough. Knead until it is nice and smooth -- five minutes for AP flour, less for pastry flour. Rest in the fridge, covered, for at least an hour and usually overnight.
Chop small:
2 cups of scallions (erring on the side of too many).
You will also need at this point:
2 tablespoons duck fat (if you don't have duck fat or want to be vegan, sesame oil also works well)
Divide into six pieces by weight (usually each piece is about 3.25 oz). Roll out each piece (size of the rollout is not critical at this step but I usually aim for 7-8 inches) and brush with 1/2 teaspoon duck fat, leaving the fat off the inch of dough furthest away from you. Roll up and coil each piece, form into a patty, and go on to the next piece before doing the next step (for me, this results in each piece getting a 10-15 minute rest at room temperature).
Re-roll, brush with another 1/2 teaspoon duck fat, and add 1/3 cup scallions, also leaving scallions off the inch of dough furthest from you. Roll up, coil, form into a patty, and refrigerate in a small bag or plastic wrap to rest for another hour or more (but try to use them all up within a day or two, they don't last forever.)
Roll out a final time to a diameter of about 8 inches and fry in canola oil, flipping several times (at the oil temps i like, every 45 seconds) rather than waiting for each side to be done. The hotter the oil, the chewier the pancakes will be. 410F / 210C is not too hot.
I don't like my sauce sweet, so I make a dipping sauce of 1 part sesame oil, 4 parts white rice vinegar, 10 parts tamari, dash of hot mustard powder, and a bit of grated fresh ginger. This is easiest if you do the oil first, so that you can pour some back in the bottle if you overdo it.
