YJL

I had never made any flatbreads before, but since my sourdough reboot was a failure and still wanted to have some breads, my mind wandered to flatbreads. Seeing many chefs cooked flatbreads on television, it seemed like a very good choice to have something still have “bread” in its name.

I didn’t actually research much, but I knew I wanted to have scallion in the bread dough mix. Coincidentally, there was a reason I wanted to add scallions. My ingredients are simple as I’d always want to keep to minimum:

• flour

  The amount of flour is a handful in the photo, really didn’t measure, just scooped out and dumped into the bowl.

  I used cake (low protein) flour, I don’t have AP. But it turned out quite good.

• scallion

• salt, a pinch

• olive oil, few drizzles

• water

  I only use room temperature water, not lukewarm or even boiling water.

That’s all. I know some would even add black pepper or white pepper, or any spices, even yogurt or yeast for leavened bread. I would like to keep first one simple.

Combine them well, make a dough, spread out. Mine was about 0.5 cm thick, 10 cm across. Heat up the pan to really hot, so you basically grill the dough. Once crust forms under and chars, flip over for the other side. Once done, let it rest a bit because you don’t want to burn yourself, but you definitely want to eat it warm because it tastes better with the fragrance of scallion.

As I mentioned there was a reason why I wanted to have scallion and I didn’t even realize until so recipes popped up in search results. It’s because of Chinese scallion flatbread (pancake) or Cong You Bing (蔥油餅), which I’ve eaten many times but not for years. For some reason, my mind suggested that, although I didn’t end up making one, but other flatbread style.

I didn’t fry with oiled pan, I dry fried it, it’s grilling. I didn’t pour in warm or boiling water when mixing the ingredients. I think you could fry with oil, just like Chinese scallion flatbread, which would look a bit translucent, but I don’t want to have more oil on the bread.

By the way, if we dissolve everything in water on stove, the pour over the flour to mix, it’s more like making hot water crust pastry. I think the Chinese scallion flatbread has some slight similarity to that texture from that type of pastry making.

Anyway, the result was really good. Charred and crispy outside and soft, tender, and even a bit of creamy inside. The scallion provided a really standout flavor. I have thought about using fermented garlic which have been fermented for about two weeks. That might provide a different flavor profile, but we will see.

It’s so quick to cook once the dough is ready, a few minutes on a hot pan, it’s ready to be eaten and eaten quick. You tear a piece, then another. Soon, it’s gone. So, I just made more and froze them, they should cook well even straight out of freezer onto the hot pan.