Recipes are often passed down through generations, so when you eat a scallion pancake in Taiwan, you’re tasting something that has been perfected over hundreds of years. Do you have any recipes that have been passed down through your family?
When my friend first told me about scallion pancakes, I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve never been a huge fan of fried food, so I didn't think I would like scallion pancakes. However, after my first bite, I knew that I would need to find more scallion pancakes at every night market I visited. In tasting the new food, I was surprised by the fresh taste of the onion and the crisp texture of the dough. I was also surprised to find the pancakes were unlike anything I’d ever tasted in the U.S.A. I imagined that the pancake would taste like an onion ring, but this dish turned out to be much richer more flavorful than I had expected. After tasting many different foods at Taiwanese night markets, I would argue that scallion pancakes are the most tasty night market trea!t
Even though I have tasted many scallion pancakes throughout Taiwan, my favorite scallion pancake-tasting experience was when I visited a scallion farm in order to make my very own scallion pancake! The process begins by you picking a scallion from the field. The trick is to pull the plant up by the roots, which can be difficult to do, especially with the bigger onions. We chopped the scallions into small pieces to create the filling for the pancake. After preparing the filling, we flattened the dough (a simple combination of flour and water) into a rectangle shape. Then, we rolled the scallions into the dough to make a spiral.
