Scallion, also called green onion, spring onion or chung (depending where you're from), is my very favorite herb (... sorry my marjoram, sorry my rosemary, sorry my dill...), so this scallion hot cake, or green onion/spring onion pan cake, or chung yau peng (again, depending where you're from...) is no doubt my very favorite snack. Its salty and onion-y taste makes a perfect company with beer! You can make your hot cake as elaborated as puffy pastry, or as simple as a piece of pie, and flavor it sinfully by adding pieces of lard or keep it a delightful weight watcher (as what I did in the below).
Recipe for scallion hot cake (yield about 1 dozen)
* 2 cups of unbleached/ bread flour
* 1/4 tsp baking powder
* 1/4 tsp of fine salt
* 2 tsps oil
* 1 cup of hot boiling water
* a few stalks of scallions, finely diced, including the white parts
* some oil in a bowl
* some idoized coarse salt (they yield for better texture)
Directions
1. In a big mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, 2 tsps of oil and fine salt.
2. Bring a cup of water to boil, immediately pour into the flour mixture, use a mixing spoon to stir, and later with your hand when they're warm to touch. Knead until the mass well combined.
3. Put the dough in a grease bowl, cover with tea towel and rest for an hour.
4. Divide the dough into 12 pieces (1st pic)
5. Roll a small ball to a 1/8"-inch thick circle. Whenever you feel the dough refuse to spread, cover and let it rest, you start working on others then. This way your cake won't have a tough texture. Once you get a flat circle, brush with oil, sprinkle coarse salt (about 1/8 tsp) and scallions. Roll up. (2nd pic)
6. Coil the roll-up dough (3rd and 4th pics)
7. Use your palm to slightly flatten the dough (5th pic)
8. Roll the dough further with your rolling pin, about 1-inch/1cm thick. It's ok if the scallions burst through the dough (6th pic)
9. Pre-heat a skillet, add oil (a little more oil yields for a nicer-looking crust), pan fry the cake for at least 7 minutes, but shouldn't longer than 10 minutes. Serve hot.
