Happy Saturday!
Or if you’re like me the days currently are just, day, day, day, day, day..#unemployed life
ANYWHO, I hope everyone is hanging in there during these weird/crazy times. For me my favorite way to stay positive and entertained is to try new cooking projects. We’ve already been over how my sourdough project was a minor fail, but I’m happy to report that with a team effort of myself and my boyfriend Maju (ok, so it was mostly Maju) our homemade scallion pancake attempt was a success!!
We, (he lol), followed the step by step tutorial and recipe on bon appetit magazine’s instagram. It is currently in their story highlights titled “Scallion Pancake”
I would say the recipe is most similar to this one, also published by bon appetit. The main difference is that in the instagram tutorial instead of just brushing chicken fat onto the dough he makes a roux (mix of flour and fat) cooked on the stove and then brushes the roux onto the dough before adding the scallions and rolling.
I made this ginger soy dipping sauce recipe to dip the pancakes in. I would say that recipe looks way more simple than the one we used, but it’s definitely not a “traditional” scallion pancake. The method we used wasn’t necessarily challenging, just a bit labor intensive/time consuming.
You roll it up like a cigar, then fold both ends into each other to basically make a pinwheel shape. Then you allow those to rest for a bit before rolling them out to form a pancake.
It’s very important to line the pan with parchment because this is some sticky dough! We rolled all of them out first and then fried them…in duck fat…oh yea baby. The recipe calls to fry them in chicken fat or canola oil but since we casually found some duck fat in the freezer we thought that it couldn’t taste bad.
Look at that beauty!! So good.
To go with the scallion pancakes we (Maju lol..are you noticing a theme? maybe I should rename my blog Chelcie shares Chef Maju’s recipes) made Steak and Salmon teriyaki, sauteed mushrooms, bok choy, and snap peas. And because we found some at the store, some grilled shishito peppers.
This teriyaki marinade is a recipe we learned from Culinary School. It is truly the best teriyaki marinade ever. I find that most store bought teriyaki sauces are filled with weird ingredients and a lot of unnecessary added sugar. Skirt steak is the best cut to use because it is tender and cooks quickly, if possible, let the steak marinade overnight. For the salmon, it really only needs to marinade for a few hours. You can either grill the steak and or fish or cook them in the oven.
Teriyaki Marinade
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1 cup sake
- ¾ cup mirin
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 green apple, peeled and grated
- Juice of half a lime
- Place all ingredients in a sauce pot and heat just until sugar dissolves. Pour them marinade over steak/fish/chicken and marinade for 3-4 hours. For steak or chicken, best results would be to marinade overnight.
- Grill or cook in the oven based on desired done-ness. Garnish with sesame seeds.
*Note: depending on how much meat or fish you plan to marinade you may want to double the recipe. Also, for the sake, most grocery stores that sell wine/beer will also sell sake.
If you want to get fancy like Maju you can grill some onions and scallions to garnish the platter of sliced steak with.
For the mushrooms, snap peas, and bok choy, I just cooked them in a pan over med high heat in sesame oil with fresh chopped garlic, ginger, salt, pepper, and then finished them with a couple dashes of soy sauce.
My plate. So delicious.
Also this is the wine we drank last night with dinner. If you’re making any sort of spicy food or food with asian flavors like soy, etc, I find dry riesling to be a great paring. This is a riesling from Oregon that I found to be really delicious.
I’ve been drinking way more than I usually do. My twice a week drinking has turned into a couple glasses of wine most nights. But I think right now we have to find joy in the little things and for me wine with dinner is what makes me happy 🙂
I hope everyone enjoys their day! Give homemade scallion pancakes a try, it’s a fun project.
xx Chelcie
