I found myself craving them this week after having them at a local Chinese restaurant in the Bay Area a few days ago. Although I could have easily zipped over to the frozen food section of my local Asian grocery store, I was up for the challenge of making them from scratch. After scouring the internet for recipes, I found that they are actually incredibly easy to make. While they are delicious on their own with a little bit of soy sauce or chili paste, I decided to make my meal a little heartier by adding some cheddar cheese that I had leftover in my fridge. One thing led to another and I realized that scallion pancake quesadillas were my genius fusion idea for the day. I devoured them up within 10 minutes (isn’t anything that’s cut up into bite sized pieces so easy to nosh up?) and immediately began crafting a second batch to share with friends, and you!
With my second batch I learned quite a few tips and tricks:
• The secret to flakier pancakes is to repeat the rolling and flattening process 2-3 times.
• If you want to double or triple this recipe (this recipe yields 4 pancakes), make them in small batches instead of doubling all the ingredients. A large ball of dough is difficult to knead evenly.
• Add the cheese while the pancake is cooking. Don’t make the pancakes first and then fold them into quesadillas – the bread will become too burnt
• These taste pair amazingly with soy sauce, salsa, sour cream or guacamole.
• Make extra, they’ll go quickly. 🙂
Scallion Pancake Quesadillas
Ingredients Â
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup boiling water
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/4 cup sesame oil
- 2 cups chopped scallions
- 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
InstructionsÂ
- In a bowl, mix together flour, salt and sugar.
- Slowly drizzle in boiling hot water into flour mixture and mix together.
- Knead dough for 10 minutes and cover with a moist dish towel for 30 minutes.
- Divide dough into four equal balls.
- Flatten out dough balls to form an 8 inch circle.
- Drizzle sesame oil and scatter scallions generously (about 1/4 cup per pancake) on the flattened dough.
- Tightly roll up circle with scallions on the inside.
- Coil the dough roll into a pinwheel. Flatten out the pinwheel and repeat steps 5-8 another two times. Repeating these steps creates those flaky layers!
- Use a round bowl to cut pancakes into perfect circles.
- Place pancake into a nonstick pan, brushed with remaining sesame oil, and add cheddar cheese. Fold in half and fry for 3-5 minutes each side.
