Dongping Pancake

Dongping Pancake

　　Pancakes were a common type of noodle dish before the 1950s. The method of making them involves mixing wheat flour with an appropriate amount of water to form dough, dividing it into fist-sized “dough balls” (i.e., small pieces of dough), rolling them out with a rolling pin into rounds the size of a tea tray and as thin as paper, then cooking them on a hot griddle until done, ready to eat. People in Dongping often enjoy pancakes rolled with scallions as a delicacy. If a small amount of salt or sugar is added to the dough, the resulting pancakes will have a different flavor. In the past, many rural housewives were skilled at making this type of noodle dish, and some pancake-making experts could roll one kilogram of flour into 32 ultra-thin pancakes—so thin they resembled cicada wings, perfectly round like full moons, so transparent that you could clearly see the text of a size 5 font beneath them.

　　　　Nowadays, restaurants and hotels often serve pancakes wrapped around braised fish or other dishes as a distinctive snack to treat guests.