Battle of the Scallion Pancakes

Scallion Pancakes are among the tastiest Street Food dishes in the world. China and Taiwan have Cong You Bing, and Korea has Pajeon - I will share my recipe for both!

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► Chinese Cong You Bing (makes 4)
2,5 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup boiling hot water

3 Tbsp oil or lard
2 Tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp five spice powder

roughly 3 stalks young scallions, ideally greens only, finely minced

about 1/4 cup oil

► Korean Pajeon (makes roughly 3)
1 egg white, beaten stiff with 1 tsp sugar
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup rice flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder, double acting
1/4 tsp sesame oil
1 cup sparkling water
about 2-3 scallions, trimmed to fit your pan

4 Tbsp oil

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Introduction to Scallion Pancakes: (0:00)
What is Hot Water Dough: (0:38)
Yousu, the Chinese Roux: (2:08)
The Magic of Lamination: (2:44)
The Perfect Scallions: (3:36)
How to Shape Scallion Pancakes: (3:55)
Why Resting Matters: (6:00)
Frying Chinese Scallion Pancakes: (6:42)
Korean Pajeon and Crispiness: (7:34)
Making Korean Scallion Pancakes: (9:20)

[mynameisandong]

파전 or 葱油饼? YOU DECIDE! 😄 I personally can't resist the flaky layers of the Chinese scallion pancake!

[ChineseCookingDemystified]

Imma let you finish, but the Shanghai scallion pancake is the best scallion pancake of all time

[jeongbalsancat]

I'm Korean. I also have many Chinese friends. we are surprised at how effortlessly this guy pronounced the names of the dishes 95% correctly. 5% is, if you isolate the sound clips then yes you can definitely tell it was spoken by a foreigner

[lolheytherejimmy]

i love chinese scallion pancakes and never understood why there was such a difference in cold or hot water dough so THANK for explaining!

[rafaelperalta]

most food youtubers(in cooking): teaches you the same way teachers teach in school

Andong: teaches you the important things that translates well into real life and gives bonus wisdom to go by

[anutterfool]

okay, idk about anyone else, but the chinese scallion pancakes, specifically the streetfood kind, are ridiculously great
like, crispy flaky outside, tender inside with scallions dotting the center. What's there not to love?

[Berkana]

Andong, there is one other 葱油饼 rolling method that yields even more layers than your method.
Roll the dough into a rectangle, and sprinkle scallions across the entire surface. Instead of having them all together in a clump of chopped scallion, have them separated. When you roll, roll from both sides of the rectangle, so that you end up with a double-snake shape. Then, coil from both ends toward each other, and stack the coils and press them down. The resulting cake will have four layers of coils, each with its own internal layers. Your current method has all the scallion concentrated in the beginning of the roll. Scattering scallion bits across the whole dough rectangle will leave scallion bits between every single layer.
(I saw this method when researching various methods for making 葱油饼.)
Also, another trick that lets you disperse the scallions more evenly: you know how the scallion leaves are tubes? Cut them in half and flatten them so they become ribbons, and then slice them up. The flat chopped scallions seem to disperse and press down more easily than little tube segments.

[CHEFPKR]

Dude I freaking love your stuff, well done.

[xinranzhang]

Don’t pit two queens against each other ❤️

[oGSSo]

I've been in korea during one year, and all the pankakes I've tasted were really really thin and without that much batter. Your's seems to close from our western vision we have from a pankake ; fluffy and where batter is the king. In the korean version, the main contenders must be the sauce and the scalions. More importantly, you should be able to cut and separate very easly parts of the pankake when you are eating it with chopsticks. The key here is to use less batter, but just enough to make a pankake (mixing the scallions in the batter and droping them afterward in the pan is a good way of doing it). And for the sauce, you can replace sugar with honey and add some sesame seeds and chopped white onions and garlic, it will be so much tastier. Anyway I've discovered your channel 1 week ago and I'm binge-watching your channel. I love your content, and I will definitely try the chinese version, as it seems close to my french heart. Have a great day my friend !

[fsinghy]

(Korean here) Generally the green onion to batter ratio is pretty skewed for my taste, normally you'd see the green onion chopped into finger-length stalks and enough in there to cover the surface of the pan. Mixing them straight into the batter also helps wilt them a bit so you get better crisp :) also add the whole egg for some nice richness and bounce to the pancake!

[mjb]

As a Chinese Korean, (I’m not sure the correct way to put it in English, basically, my ancestors were Korean and they moved to China).
In Korea, 전 is a category of food I believe, there are not only 파전, there are also, for instance, 오징어전(squid pancake) 야채전(vegetable pancake) and many other kind of 전. If that’s considered, korean 전 also have a place in my heart.
However, 葱油饼 win this “scallions pancake battle” for sure, that crispy scallion taste just never gets old. 😆

You and your fancy whisk need to battle Binging with Babish and his tiny whisk!!!

[SignumImperativ]

Somehow my family learned a slightly simplified version of those Chinese Scallion Pancakes back in Southern Kazakhstan. Decades later in Germany my family would still make them and none of my neighbours and friends had ever seen something like that. My surprise was immense when I found out that our "family" dish apparently came from China.

[yassinedownpourz]

Here in North Africa we have something very similar called "Mssemen" the dough is made of mix of samolina & flour and using melted butter & oil for lamination and it served with honey or just plain or it can be stuffed with chili tomato sauce too.

[jamaibou]

This is one of the most underrated cooking channel on YouTube. Andong deserves more recognition.

[manmansikla]

the葱油餅 is pretty legit! saw someone recommend Taiwanese 蔥抓餅 in the comment, and I like it more as it is less doughy and flakier, like a roti canai,
more suitable for snacking! in Hong Kong 手抓餅(same fleaky pancake without scallion) is even more popular
you can choose melted cheese, corn, grilled meat...etc as a topping
but the most popular one is with purple yam (紫薯手抓餅)

the Korean one looks a bit too thick compare what I had in Korea (lived there for couple of years)
파전usually is like the scallion (with seafood most of the time)barely cover with a thin layer of batter each side.
Also in Korean household they use a pre mix flour called "부침가루" (pancake flour) which is plain flour mixed with salt, pepper, garlic and onion power.

Use Ice water to mix the batter may help to achieve the crunchiness. I saw a programme years ago chef in Japanese use ice water / cold beer mix into tempura batter for the light texture.

PS: it is midnight here., , I should be alseep but I am hungry after watching this...lol

[VeronikaCroft]

Your videos are always so insightful and well-structured. Hell. Your entire channel is extremely organised. It's what I would consider "goals". It really didn't take me long to sub and turn that notification bell on. I always learn something new every time.

I'll dive into this video now, but I will say that I love scallion pancakes (with a little bias towards Cong You Bing) so I can't wait to see what your version and methods are.

[RealisticCookingIRL]

I've had the Chinese version before, I always wanted to know how to make them, I had NO IDEA it was so easy! Made a batch tonight for tomorrow morning, wish me luck ^_^

[arthurhuang]

Even Chinese pancakes, 葱油饼, are made in different ways throughout China.