This is a great recipe for a side or appetizer.
I was not able to fold over the dough and make an appetizing looking round packet, see pictures below. The skills of Chinese chefs are beyond my expertise. I found that using my pasta maker make a uniformly thick dough and using two rounds made with a large cookie cutter, yielded attractive looking “pancakes” (see the pictures below). These are only pancakes in the sense that they are fried. They are savory and certainly not sweet. I also added a bit of spice using hot pepper oil and a bit of sweet using honey, which, in my opinion yielded a much more tasty product.
These are delicious and can be served for breakfast, lunch or dinner. They are easy to make and come together fairly quickly. So give them a try!
Chive Pancakes (Jiucai Hezi)
Ingredients
Dough
- 3 Cups King Arthur All-Purpose Flour
- ½ tsp Sea Salt
- 1 Cup Hot water (from the tap)
Filling
- 4 Beaten Eggs
- ½ tsp Sea Salt
- 8 ounces Garlic Chives: I mix these as follows, ¼ Garlic shoots (scrapes), ½ Chinese Chives, ¼ Regular Chives, chop in fine slices
- 1-2 Garlic cloves finely minced or pressed
- 1 TBSP Soy Sauce
- 1 tsp Sesame oil
- 1 tsp 5-spice powder
- 1 tsp Hot pepper oil
- 1 tsp Honey
Assembly and Cooking
- Peanut oil or equivalent for frying the packets.
- ½+ cup water or chicken broth (home made if possible)
Instructions
Dough
- Mix together well the flour and salt.
- Add the water and mix by hand until you have a nice dough ball.
- Add water or flour if the dough is a little too dry or too wet.
- Place the dough in an oiled bowl and set aside for 30 minutes, covered with plastic wrap.
Filling
- Make sure the eggs are well beaten and scrambled. Cook in a fry pan, and when done set aside. When cool chop fine.
- Place the chives and garlic shoots, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, 5-spice powder, hot pepper oil, honey and eggs in a bowl and mix well. Set aside.
Assembly and cooking
- Take the dough out of the bowl and place on a floured board. Roll the dough into a cylinder. Flatten with a rolling pin thin enough to enter a pasta maker on the zero setting.
- Using the pasta maker roll the dough to the 3rd setting, and large enough across to take a 3 or 4 inch cookie cutter.
- Cut out 4 inch rounds (or smaller is you wish). Place a round on a floured surface and add 2 TBPS of filling. wet the edges, and place another 4 inch round on top, sealing the edges.
- Place 2 TBPS of peanut oil or similar oil in a fry pan, and heat until shimmering.
- Place the prepared packets and fry until golden brown on both sides.
- If you are going to freeze these, or set in the refrigerator for a few days, don't steam them. Steam them just before serving, which will both heat them up and soften the dough. If frozen, thaw before steaming.
- Pour ¼ cup water, or chicken broth in the pan, cover the pan and steam for about 3-4 minutes. Serve!
