Scallion oil cake can be said to be one of the most classic breakfasts in Chinese, and it has its own characteristics all over the country, and the method is not exactly the same. In my memory, Yangzhou onion oil cake is one of the most delicious street snacks in my opinion, and Yangzhou people are also accustomed to calling Yangzhou onion oil cake "onion oil fire". When I came home from school, I always had to pass by a street corner selling a stall selling fire, and before I got close to the stall, I could smell the aroma of onion emitted by the onion oil fire in the distance. The temptation of that kind of food, even if you've eaten enough, is hard to resist. The bread makers are often mostly husband and wife shops, the man is responsible for kneading the dough flapjacks; the women are responsible for collecting money, finding change, and handing the freshly baked cakes to customers, busy and happy. When school is out, buy a cushion for hunger, which can either temporarily fill your stomach or incense your mouth, not to mention more flavorful.
The scallion oil is simple in appearance and relatively small, the diameter of the cake is about 10 cm, and the thickness is about 1 cm or slightly thicker. The entire shallot oil-fired process is carried out on a trolley that can be moved. At one end of the trolley must have been a coal stove the size of an oil drum with a thick iron lid that could be moved; at the other end was a billboard for making cakes. Seeing the master selling the cake, he pulled out a piece of dough from the noodle basin that had been prepared in advance, skillfully divided the dough into almost the same size, and then took another piece of dough to continue to divide, and in the blink of an eye, forty or fifty doughs on the board were already neatly lined up. Next, the master uses a brush to oil each dough. During the waking hours, he also takes care of the cakes that are being baked on the iron plate. When the waking time comes, immediately take out a dough agent, press the long strip, evenly smear a layer of pre-prepared puff pastry, sprinkle with green onions, plus some fat diced, roll from one end of the long noodle sheet to the other, roll into a small cylinder while supporting, and often the length of the final rolled dough piece is two to three times that of the long noodle sheet that began to be pressed. Once done, you can then operate the second until all the dough on the board is coated with shallot oil. When the last shallot oil dough is made, the first few doughs also reach the time required to wake up. So they were transferred to the movable iron plate that had been brushed with oil and roasted by the coal fire. Gently press the small cylinder into a round cake, bake one side into a golden brown, turn the surface, and continue to burn the other side into a golden brown. The final step is to put the golden brown cake on both sides and continue baking it for a minute or so, don't underestimate this last step, which is the key to the layering of the inside of the cake in the shallot oil fire. When you take the onion oil from the master's hand and burn it, take a bite, the crispy taste and the fragrant lips and teeth after eating, make you feel that the wait of about ten minutes is absolutely worth it.
Now back in Yangzhou it is difficult to find this kind of stall selling onion oil, even if you can sometimes find one, the taste is not as good as before. It doesn't matter, we can do it at home, only you have the flour, shallots, oil ready, and you can easily make a delicious shallot oil at home and burn it, and find the nostalgic good taste.
Burn shallot oil over fire
【Shallot oil fire】
Dough: 2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup boiling water, 1/2 cup cold water
Filling: 3 tbsp flour, 2 tbsp salad oil, 10 shallots, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tbsp lard oil.
Production process:
Production steps
1 Place the flour and salt in a container, rinse the flour with boiling water and stir constantly to make the flour loose snowflake-like.
2 Then add cold water and stir the flour to form a relatively smooth dough, cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for about an hour.
3 In between the waking noodles, wash and drain the green onions and cut them into green onions, and cut the pork plate oil into cubes;
4 Combine the salad oil, salt and flour into ghee and set aside;
5 Take out the awakened dough, divide it into 10 doughs of the same size on the oiled operating table, and rub it along the interface;
6 Use a brush to brush each strip of noodles with a layer of oil, cover with plastic wrap and wake up for about 1 hour;
7 Take a part of the dough and press the long noodle sheet;
8 Spread a thin layer of puff pastry evenly on the dough sheet, sprinkle with green onions, and add some diced pork plate oil;
9 From the end of the dough, the long strip of dough is rolled into a small cylinder, and the rolling process can be rolled on the side to make the rolled dough as thin as possible;
10 Rolled small cylinders erected and placed together with nine other rolled small cylinders to continue to relax for 30 minutes;
Shallot oil cake dough
11 Put three tbsp salad oil in a pan, heat the pan and put in the waking cake embryos, gently flatten it into a round cake with your hands, make it into a colored one side, turn it over and continue to bake it to make a golden brown;
12 Finally, bake in a preheated oven at 420F for 10 minutes.
(When frying the preforms, you can also put a little more oil, and then fry it at 200 degrees in an air fryer for 5 minutes to force out the excess oil, and the crust will be more crispy.) ）