Scallion pancake (Cong You Bing), possibly the best famous Chinese pancake in western country, has its unique charms to its lovers. The crispy out shell, the softer inner part and the beautiful layers make it dominate other Chinese pancakes.

Making a perfect scallion pancake at home is quite easy. More fortunately, they can be frozen well. You can assemble them ahead and package each one with a air-tight bag before freezing. In a hurry morning, take it out and fry directly and serve with a blow of porridge or congee, even milk. Besides, there is an easy version developed by Elaine. With that recipe, there is no need to knead the dough as the pancake is directly fried from batter.

Tips before starting

1. We recommend using hot water to make the dough instead of cold water. Hot water can help to shorten the frying time so there is no burnt outside and uncooked inner part. And it also helps to keep a softer inner part, forming an interesting contrast with the crispy out-shell.
2. Whenever you feel the dough is sticky, brush oil on your hands, operating board and rolling pins. Never dust flour!!
3. We have found the best way of folding the pancake instead of rolling up simply, you can get this hand folding fan method from the video. It brings beautiful layers.
4. How to keep the pancakes: place one rolled up pancake into a air-tight container, press out with hand or rolling pin and seal completely. Keep in freezer up for 1 week.

Ingredients for Scallion Pancakes

Main dough: 300g (2cups+ 2 tbsp.) all purpose flour + 170g hot water

Oil Mixture(油酥): 1/3 cup vegetable oil + 1/4 cup all purpose  flour + 5 scallion whites

Other ingredients: 2 cups finely chopped green onion or scallion, salt for garnishing and oil for brushing and frying.

Instructions

Make the main dough: Slowly stir the hot water to the flour. Wait until cooled down and knead until it forms a smooth dough. Or knead the dough with a stand mixer for 5-7 minutes with low speed.

Rest the dough: Cover with plastic wrapper or a wet cloth and rest for at least 30 minutes. When the gluten can be well rested, we can easily roll the pancake out.

Make the oil-flour mixture (油酥): heat oil over medium fire and fry green onions until browned. Discard the green onion and keep the oil. Pour flour into a small bowl and mix in the hot oil.

Roll out the dough: Cut the dough into 4 equal portions and roll one portion out to a large rectangle wrapper. Sprinkle salt and top with a layer of oil-flour mixture and then another layer of chopped scallion.

Roll-up the dough: Starting from the long end, roll the dough up like folding a hand fan. Slightly stretch and roll one side up to the middle and then the other side to the middle too. Overlay the two ends.  Cover the dough and rest for 15 minutes or so. Repeat the process and finish all of the remaining portions. The former twos with more layers are assembled with the hand folding fan methods, while the two in the second line is made with simply roll up method.

Roll each portion to a large pancake (around 5 inches in diameter). If you plan to cook the pancakes later, package each of them with an air-tight bag and freeze up for 1 week.

Frying the pancakes: add around 3 tablespoons of oil in a pan and fry the pancakes until golden brown on one side (takes 3-4 minutes over medium fire), turn over the fry the another side for 3 minutes too. After turning over, slightly press the center of the pancake so they can be fried evenly.

See those lovely multi-layers?