牛肉餡餅 | Beef Pancake

January 28, 2021

During pandemic, we walked 2 hours to House of Pancake in the Sunset District of San Francisco, CA. again to get their beef pancake 牛肉餡餅 (not the beef pancake roll which I have made before, but just the pancake). It was sooooo juicy and well-flavored that it is totally worth walking another 2 hours to get them! Today, I tried two methods of making dough to recreate this pancake!

form dough, rest 30mins, knead and cook (老飯骨, 1st video below with English subtitles)
form dough, rest 30mins, add oil and knead, rest another 2 hours, knead and cook (Xiaogaojie, 2nd video below)

QUICK TAKEAWAYS

soft dough for dumplings, hard dough for noodles 軟面餃子硬麵湯
- this dough will so be so soft and wet that it cannot be kneaded smooth right away, and still very sticky! just let it rest
juicy fillings:
- 7:3 lean to fat ratio of beef and pork will be the best ratio. Fatty meat gives it juicy flavor!
- adding some pork in beef
- adding water in fillings and mix them all in
how can you tell if the fillings marinating is enough?? when you put greens (scallions, shallots/onions) in, they wilt fast = enough salt in the fillings 夠鹽分就蔫了
add scallions at last, right before ready to cook pancake

	老飯骨	小高姐 Xiaogaojie
dough resting time	30-45mins	2.5 hours
knead frequency	once	twice
use of oil	No	Yes
ingredients	75g AP flour 1g salt 55g 40C water	75g AP flour 1g salt 48g 40C water 7g oil (first knead)
texture after rest	softer, wetter, resist more, unable to form pattern	soft, can still for pattern
texture after cooked	similar, might be softer	similar, more crispy
texture after reheating with air-fryer

RECIPE

Dough

150g All Purpose flour –> 75g per condition
1g salt –> 0.5g per condition
90g warm or cold water –> 45g per condition
- at the end I ended up adding more water to both dough conditions to get a wetter dough (following consistency in the videos)

Fillings

200g beef
50g pork
15g soy sauce
5-10g rice wine
1-2tbsp five/thirteen spice powder
1tbsp white pepper powder
1tsp salt
1-2tbp sugar
1tsp ginger paste/minced ginger
1tbsp sesame oil
oil
2 shallots or 1/2 onion, minced
scallions, minced

Procedure:

Step 1: mix 150g AP flour, 1g salt and 90g warm water (90-100F, 30-40C); this dough will be very wet so that the pancake will be soft. Do not worry about kneading it smooth yet, just bring them together as a dough.

do not have to strictly follow water measurement, different brand of flour, temperature all alters water absorption powder.

Step 2: cover with wet cloth or wrap, rest for 20mins.

Step 3: while the dough is resting, mix the following ingredients for beef pancake fillings:

200g beef (70% lean, 30% fat is the best ratio)
50g pork (70% lean, 30% fat is the best ratio)
15g soy sauce
5-10g rice wine
1-2tbsp five/thirteen spice powder
1tbsp white pepper powder
1tsp salt
1-2tbp sugar
1tsp ginger paste/minced ginger

Step 4: in one direction, use hand or chopstick/other tools to stir the fillings till it starts to become sticky; can lift up the fillings and smash down to give bouncy texture

the meat looks more sticking to each other and softer after keep stirring in one direction

Step 5: in order to have softer meat fillings, add 1/4 cup cold water, keep stirring till all water mix in. 打水讓餡兒嫩一點

Step 6: add 1tbsp sesame oil, 2-3tbsp oil to wrap around all fillings, mix well to “seal”

Step 7: right before you are ready to wrap fillings in the dough, add minced scallions, 2 minced shallots.

the salt in the fillings will make the water of scallions come out; if scallions stay in the fillings for a long time without being cooked, it will become sour.
minced scallions should not be TOO minced either, water will lose from it

Step 8: back to the dough, flour cutting board and knead dough after 20mins resting till smooth. There are two methods onward:

roll out and make pancake right away (1st and 3rd video)
Xiaogaojie (2nd video) add 1-2tbsp oil after 1st rest, and rest the dough for another 2 hours before cooking
- add oil so the dough will be soft rather than hard even after cooling down
pastry chef geng biao (3rd video) added oil before the 1st rest, which I can try next time!

I have half of the dough following Xiaogaojie and rest dough for another 2 hours; another half dough go straight to cooking!

Step 9: shaping:

divide dough under two different conditions into 2 pieces (4 pancakes in total)
roll into a large circle with 2mm thickness
make a cut from the center to the edge
spread meat fillings on 3/4 of the pancake sheet
wrap the empty quarter on top of its next quarter, press down on the edge
then keep folding and pressing down the edge till the whole circular sheet is folded up as 1/4 of the circle
make a pattern on the edge with your thumb