Battle of the Scallion Pancakes

hey guys today we're making scallion pancakes and it's gonna be a battle between two giants in one corner we got the chinese tsungyo bing which is flaky and full of delicious layers and in the other corner we have the classic korean pajon which is crispy on the outside with a tender and chewy interior i can't tell you which one of the two is more delicious but what i can tell you is how to make each one of them so you can conduct your own little taste test and look while both of them are called scallion pancakes the preparation methods couldn't be more different but there is one thing both of them have in common which is that you can learn a lot from both recipes let me explain let's begin with the chinese scallion pancake tongyo bing it starts with simply mixing all-purpose flour with a bit of salt nothing new here but then you add hot water almost boiling hot water actually and mix everything with some kind of tool in order to not burn yourself and then knead everything into a ball and let that rest for at least 30 minutes so this hot water dough is the first cool thing we can learn normally when you think of wheat flour though it's usually you know stretchy and elastic just think of pulling noodles or tossing pizza dough that's all happening thanks to the magic power of gluten which you can basically imagine like thousands of tiny little springs that connect to each other once you add water to flower or wait maybe i should say once you add cold water to flower that's because adding hot water actually has a strikingly different effect what happens to the gluten is pretty much this all you need to know for now is that the gluten loses most of its stretchiness and bounce and let's say you're trying to bake a nice and airy sourdough loaf that's pretty bad news because you need that elasticity to get the airy structure but if on the other hand you're trying to let's say roll something out very thinly this can come in like a huge help by giving you a lot more control over your dough and that's why this type of hot water dough also called tang mian in chinese is so popular for making all types of chinese stuffed pastries and you know even some types of dumplings and i gotta say that there's also a little bit of difference in texture hot water though is a lot more tender and less chewy than a cold water dough the next step might seem a little bit weird at first into a little saucepan i'm adding vegetable oil a bit of flour salt and five spice powder now let me introduce you to fancy whisk which some people say is the evil antagonist in the tiny whisk universe we're going to whisk everything into a homogeneous mixture and let that bubble away for just around a minute or so what we get is pretty much the same as a roux but in chinese this is called yosu it's a lightly flavored and slightly sticky mixture that we will be using to create the chinese scallion pancakes second outstanding feature its many flaky layers i guess most of you have tried a croissant or puff pastry in your life am i right all those beautiful puffy layers you get inside they're the result of a process called lamination i'm not gonna go too deep into this but it's a special folding technique that results in alternating layers of dough and butter and dough and butter and dough and butter the fat is what keeps the layers separated but when you bake the croissant the moisture from both of the dough and the butter which does contain like what fifteen percent water or something it turns into steam it expands and inflates the croissant from inside hence puff pastry but if you feel like thanking the french for their amazing invention maybe think again similar designs for puff pastry have been around for centuries all the way you know from yemen to the indian paratha all the way to the chinese scallion pancake that's right in some ways it's a chinese croissant don't add me just one more thing before i show you how to get to the puffy layers you gotta of course chop some scallions try finding the smallest and most young and tender scallions you can and then take your time really don't rush this you want to get those as thin as possible big hard chunks of scallions can become really annoying now grab your rested dough divide into four equal parts roll these up play a quick round of four ball monty okay i'm sorry then we start rolling get your dough into some kind of long rectangular or elliptical shape don't stress out about the shape but do try to get it nice and evenly thin you should hopefully feel that our hot water dough is very forgiving and easy to work with now brush on a thin layer of your yosu just a thin layer not more than that remember this is only to help keeping our layers separate now sprinkle on a handful of scallions don't overdo it or your pancake will burst and also make sure to leave a lip of around two centimeters on the edge that's furthest away from you now we can roll this up again the first fold might be a little bit tricky just go bit by bit but once you got that done you will almost intuitively do the rest right and then end up with a long and scallion filled tube this was just the beginning though because we're now going to coil this up make sure to tuck the loose end under the pancake itself and then just kind of press this down with your palm until you get a nice and evenly spirally cake i'm pretty sure every single grandma in china has her own technique of doing this for example you can also do the infamous double coil where you start coiling from both ends and once you meet in the middle fold them on top of each other and press which is my personal favorite method actually no matter how you do this your final step will be to flatten and roll out your cake one last time try to be gentle and make sure none of the scallions tear the skin and leak out of the cake this is actually why i told you to use very finely minced scallions but you know even if it does tear no worries it's mostly about aesthetics here and you know this repeated rolling and re-rolling and coiling up is basically the old-school way of making puff pastry with lots of layers by hand one of the coolest things is that you can actually keep those pre-made scallion pancakes in the fridge or even in the freezer just make sure to you know put some like sheets of baking paper or something between them so they don't stick to each other i didn't have any around so i used greased aluminum foil but you get the gist and you know in fact a lot of scallion pancake aficionados will actually tell you that you have to rest them overnight there's kind of a reason for that look this is a very popular breakfast item in china and taiwan but the street vendors who like sell this stuff they of course pre-make them the night before at home so this way they can sell them much faster the day off and so i'm not quite sure how much of that is by design but there's something magical that happens to wheat flour dough when you let it rest and kind of mature and ripen my point is if you can it's actually encouraged to make your scallion pancakes in advance and even the frozen ones you can just use them straight out of the freezer there's no need to defrost them or anything just pop them right into the pan and speaking of pans let's fry some scallion pancakes this is probably the easiest part because there are only two things you need to keep in mind to get this right the first is using a very generous amount of oil kind of like a shallow fry i know this might scare some of you but please believe me you will be disappointed if you don't add enough oil and the second thing is to kind of go low and slow i'm using medium low heat and i'm regularly checking the bottom of my pancake when you feel like it's getting some color flip it around and repeat the process it's totally okay to flip back and forth a few times this is not a burger i'm also using a spatula to press down my pancake occasionally which definitely helps but this one is optional now if you like wonderfully crunchy flaky pancakes with a wholesome scallion flavor and just a little hint of five spice this one is definitely for you but i hope you remember that this is kind of a battle and today's contender is the korean scallion pancake which despite its name is a completely different story this one is not rolled or shaped or anything instead it's a batter based pancake to this batter you can add all sorts of things the classic choice for a pajon would of course be scallions but you can also add other shredded veggies or seafood so it's a very versatile recipe however it does have a few challenges you know if you want to get things right the main problem here is texture i mean it's a batter and when you add batter to hot oil it is gonna get crispy from you know all the rapid heat transfer but the tricky part is keeping it crispy because the batter also contains enough moisture to basically very quickly steam itself back into sogginess unless you think of ways to allow the moisture to escape and that is what makes a good korean pancake recipe to me so i know my approach here is a little bit untraditional i'm i'm glad uncle roger is not korean what i essentially do here is i use all the tricks i possibly can to provide a maximum airy and fluffy interior which will essentially provide lots of like little paths and channels for the steam and moisture inside our batter to escape both during the frying but also after the frying actually the first trick is basic it's adding a bit of baking powder definitely go for double acting baking powder if you can i'm not sure why but over here in germany we still mostly get single acting in the stores but it's also gonna do if that's your only choice the second trick is to use sparkling water for the batter it obviously contains lots of bubbles and while yes most of them will disappear once you mix it into the batter some of them will also stay and help us more than you might expect and the last trick is actually the one we're gonna start with which is simply taking an egg white and adding a little bit of sugar and then whipping this guy into airy oblivion now we can make a korean pancake i like to use a blend of 2 3 all purpose flour and 1 3 rice flour which helps getting a light texture add a pinch of salt baking powder a dash of sesame oil if you like give everything a brief mix and then finally add the sparkling water at this stage it's important not to overwork your batter only mix as much as you need to incorporate everything but don't mix more than that one thing i like is actually that this one is instantly ready to fry first get your pan nice and hot medium high is good for me and unfortunately the same rule applies here you have to use a good amount of oil do not skimp add a ladle full of your batter into the pan and don't worry if it's not perfect you can always adjust and add a few extra drops of batter where you need them before your pancake has time to firm up all the way add a few whole stalks of scallions on top and drizzle a bit of extra fresh batter over them by the way check out these little bubbles we did that you can literally see the moisture escaping through them when the bottom of your pancake is nice and golden brown flip and repeat make sure to add a bit of extra oil if yours dried up at this point once the pancake is done transfer to a paper towel lined rack or plate to cool down and it's almost ready to enjoy just make a quick dip from sugar soy sauce rice vinegar and a dash of maggi seasoning sorry about that and devour as you can see if you know how to apply a few simple tricks making scallion pancakes no matter if it's the korean kind or the chinese kind is really a piece of cake let me know if you have any other tricks or you know hacks up your sleeve that i might have missed to make scallion pancakes and also let me know which one is your favorite type is it the korean one or the chinese one we're gonna do a little survey and i'm excited for the results anyway thanks for watching and i'm gonna see you in the next one

Channel: My Name Is Andong

Views: 252,651

Rating: 4.9433694 out of 5

Keywords: andong, my name is andong, lear nine tiny, scallion pancakes, korean scallion pancake, chinese scallion pancake, chinese scallion pancake recipe, korean scallion pancake recipe, korean pajeon recipe, korean pajeon, cong you bing recipe, 葱油饼, scallion pancake, scallion pancake recipe, scallion pancake korean, scallion pancake chinese, korean pancake, korean pancake recipe, how to make, how to make pancakes, how to make scallion pancakes, pancake, chinese pancake, street food

Id: q31XGM75s_0

Length: 11min 16sec (676 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020