“Who eats vegetables for breakfast?” he asked when I help myself with ratatouille during breakfast in a hotel at Paris recently. “The French?” I replied. “Weird” said he.
This is another dish I make to include more vegetables into my love one’s diet. How do you convince a boy who loves steaks and ignore vegetables to eat more greens? The answer to the conundrum is: make the greens seems secondary. In this case, the pancake is flavour with dried shrimps which umami flavour overpowers any bitterness from the chives.
I grew up having this pancake for tea though. My mother, a stay-home-must and an excellent cook, need her tea time. She makes this pancake often, and other snacks such as fried lin gou (nian gao/年糕)) with yam.
I never noticed then the amount of vegetables in each pancake and I believe nobody will. Make this and someone will be having vegetables for breakfast and wouldn’t even notice it 😉
INGREDIENTS
You need only these 3 main ingredients: flour, chives, and dried shrimps. The rest – oil, sugar, and alt – should be found in every cook’s pantry.
TOOLS
- Non-stick pan (I’m using a 28 cm pan)
- Chopping board + Knife
- Mixing bowl + chopstick (to mix batter)
- Sift (optional)
- Small bowl (to soak dried shrimps)
RECIPE CARD
Easy Chinese Chives Pancake
Ingredients
- MAIN INGREDIENTS
- 4 tbsp all purpose flour, sifted
- 10 g chives, chopped into 2 cm
- 1 tbsp dried shrimps, soaked and chopped
- OTHERS
- 6 tbsp water
- ¼ tsp sugar
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1/2 tbsp oil
Directions
- Step 1 PREP: Soak shrimps. Sift flour (optional). Chop chives
- Step 2 MAKE BATTER: Slowly add water into the flour while using a pair of chopstick to mix into a smooth paste. Season with sugar and salt. Add chives. Mix well.
- Step 3 FRY DRY SHRIMPS: Heat 1/2 tbsp of oil in a pan over high fire. When oil sizzle, fry shrimps until fragrant (when it begins to jump) (1 min).
- Step 4 HEAT BATTER: Pour batter into the middle of the pan. Immediately swirl it around the pan. Let it set.(3 min).
- Step 5 FLIP BATTER. When pancake is no longer translucent and begin to brown, flip it over, and cook for another few minutes (3 min). Dish out and serve hot.
STEP 1:
STEP 2:
STEP 3:
STEP 4:
STEP 5:
SHORT RECIPE
Add 6 tbsp of water into 4 tbsp of sifted flour. Mix well. Add 1/4 tsp sugar + 1/4 tsp salt + 10 g chopped 2 cm chives. Fry shrimps in 1/2 tbsp oil. Cook batter (3 min). Flip. Cook (3 min).
COOKING TIPS
- Double the recipe. This recipe makes one pancake. Depending on how many pancakes you want, multiple by that number. Easy!
- You can omit sifting the flour. This additional step will make the texture of the pancake better. When I want it fast and don’t feel particularly motivated, I happily skip this step.
- How to make a round pancake?
- Pour batter in a circular motion into the pan and immediately swirl it around. You have to do this step really quickly.
- Do not move the pancake until it is set. How do you know it’s set? When the flour is no longer white. It should be light brown.
- Slide the pancake from the pan into the plate. As the pancake is rather flimsy, its best to transfer it this way to prevent unnecessary contact with it.
- Cook longer to make it crispy I prefer my pancake crispy and browned. So I’ll normally cook longer than 3 minutes.
Enjoy it for breakfast or tea!