Weekend cooking: Scallion pancakes

Courtesy of Ming Tsai, and just as good as the Chinese restaurant version! I used a LOT less oil than he suggested, and also added some chili oil on the dough along with the sesame oil.

These have been on my to-make list forever. They're so simple and use so few ingredients, yet they seem like something you couldn't possibly make at home. Here's how you make them:

1. Sift two cups of flour into a bowl. (Who am I kidding, I never sift flour. But I do sprinkle it out of the measuring cup into the bowl to make up for it.)

2. Have a cup of boiling water ready. Pour it in, mixing, until it comes together into a fairly sticky dough. (I used a little more than 3/4 of a cup. Ming Tsai says you can use the food processor, but this just creates a mess. Use a spatula at first and then your hands.)

3. Let the ball of dough rest in the bowl, covered by a cloth, for half an hour.

4. Roll the dough out into a thin rectangle. Brush with sesame oil (I also used chili oil, and used my hands for this too) and cover with lots of sliced scallions.

5. Roll up, jelly-roll style.

6. Cut the roll into four equal pieces.

7. With each piece, twist several times and then coil.

8. Roll each coil flat. (This twisting, coiling, and rolling process creates the flaky layers.)

9. Fry. I pan-fried, using about 2 tablespoons of oil.

I didn't do the complicated dipping sauce, and instead just splashed some rice vinegar into soy sauce in the same bowl that held the scallions. Not the healthiest starch, but I'll save some money making these at home when the craving hits.