What was this amazing Chinese pancake and how can I make it?

Cafe Society
1

I just returned from a trip to Shanghai where I ate some absolutely amazing street food one morning for breakfast, in the area near the Hengsheng Peninsula Hotel.

The street vendor had a big, round, flat iron griddle like an upside-down steel drum. She took what looked like a big handful of leavened dough and smeared it all over the top of the griddle in a paper-thin layer, then scraped away the excess dough and threw it back into the bowl she had taken it from. As the large, round crepe cooked, she broken an egg on top of it and scrambled it a little, and threw some pickled vegetables and some crispy fried dough (not “you tiao”, but something crispier, not as chewy) on top of the egg layer. When it was done, she rolled it up and folded it in half and wrapped it in paper.

It was utterly delicious. Does anyone know what this dish is called, or how I can find a recipe for it? I had never seen this food before in the US or in Hong Kong, and I’ve eaten a lot of different types of Chinese food in my life.

2

We had a variation of the same thing as street food in Beijing in the fall of 2005. I believe it’s called jian bing - and my fiance and I speak of it wistfully and have yet to figure out how to recreate it here in the states. We go to San Francisco several times a year but have never found jian bing in either touristy Chinatown or new Chinatown. You might be able to find the ingredients used to make it in an Asian market, but the hot griddle and tasty brown sauce might be hard to recreate.

3

Awesome, thanks so much for supplying the name! I found a tutorial by googling on “jian bing” and one of these days i’ll ask someone to translate it for me (it’s a PDF, so no go on the machine translation). yum.