Text 415, 63 rader
Skriven 2006-04-15 22:30:34 av DAVE SACERDOTE (1:123/140)
Ärende: Scallion Pancake Cook-Off!
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Arnold's is a wholesale/retail butcher shop. Along with the meats, 
they also carry a variety of food-service items such as frozen and 
canned veggies, butter, etc.  

Last time I was there, I noticed something new: Frozen scallion
pancakes, ready to thaw and pan-fry.  They were labeled "Scallion
Pie" and they're made by the Shang Hai Ravioli Company in Boston MA.
Five in a package, Arnold's sells them for $2.95.

It just so happened that I had made a batch of scallion pancakes a 
couple of days before; they're a lot of work, so I usually make a
dozen or so, wrap them up, and use them a few at a time over the
course of several meals.  I bought a package of the premade ones
to compare them side-by-side with my own, figuring that if Shang Hai
Ravioli Company could come close to my standards, it would save me
a bit of work when we were in the mood for them.

After nearly a year of practicing, I've finally got the dough 
and rolling technique for scallion pancakes down pat, and I
can get a paper-thin disk of dough to roll, coil, and flatten 
without the inconvenience of using the pasta machine.  This
is great, because when the pancake fries, the many layers 
formed by the rolled coil crisp and puff from one another, 
and the pancakes come out tender, and crispy, yet chewy and
resilient in the center - very much like the ones we used to 
get at a restaurant in Northampton, and later at the Royal 
East in Cambridge.

Ingredients listed on the package from Shang Hai were pretty
basic: flour, water, scallions, sugar, salt; I don't put sugar
in mine, but for the most part it's a standard recipe. When I 
first unwrapped them, I was impressed. Not too many scallions 
visible, in fact rather less than the restaurants use, but the 
pancakes were obviously hand-made: characteristic uneven edges 
with variations in the thickness of the coil, and they looked 
to be individually hand-wrapped in simple plastic wrap.  The
biggest difference seemed to be in the thickness: the packaged
pancakes were easily more than a quarter-inch thick and varied
up to nearly half an inch.  There weren't that many layers in
the packaged pancakes, either, and the dough hadn't been rolled
out as thinly as mine.  As a result, the pancakes come out 
heavier with fewer crispy layers and a much thicker chewy center.

Although I think that the Shang Hai pancakes are hand-rolled, 
I suspect that they may be machine-processed and the initial 
dough disks are mechanically produced. Very simple doughs like
those used for these and for pierogies get tough and gluey when
they are overworked, and the premade panckaes had that texture.

The flavor was acceptable but a little on the flat side; what
they lacked in onion flavoring they made up in salt, unfortunately.

So now you have my impression.  The rest of the family and our
guests were given the pancakes in a blind test, in which only I
knew which plate held the Shang Hai pancakes.  Everyone preferred
the homemade ones.  Final verdict: the premade pancakes were OK
for an emergency stand-by, but if I have a few days' notice I'll
keep making our own.

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