SPRING ONION PANCAKES

Makes 8 pancakes

Preparation: 30 minutes, plus 1 hour to rest Cooking time: a few minutes per pancake

• 500ml cake flour, plus a little extra

• a generous pinch of salt

• 200ml water

• about 30ml sesame oil

• 3 spring onions, finely chopped

• 15ml sesame seeds

1 Mix the flour and salt and gradually stir in the water with a fork until the dough is too thick to stir. Turn out onto a clean work surface and knead vigorously for about 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. If the dough is too sticky for your liking, add a little extra flour. Shape the smooth, elastic dough into a neat ball, place in a mixing bowl greased with a little oil and rest for 1 hour under a damp tea towel.

2 Divide the dough into 8 equal portions and work with one at a time. Roll out the dough as thinly as possible into a more or less rectangular shape.

Brush a layer of sesame oil over, then sprinkle chopped spring onions and sesame seeds on top. Lightly roll the dough lengthwise into a long strip; then roll that into a spiral and set aside. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

3 Lightly oil your work surface and use a rolling pin to flatten each spiral as thinly as possible into round pancakes. One or two small tears in the surface are not the end of the world but try to keep the pancakes as even as possible. They need to stick to the work surface slightly so they can stretch, so don’t use too much oil when you start rolling them flat.

4 Heat a non-stick pan until hot and fry the pancakes one by one until golden-brown on both sides and slightly puffed up. Serve hot with a filling such as pork belly with Chinese 5-spice (see recipe, right).