Beijing Pizza 韭菜糊餅

韭菜糊餅 Jiu Chai Hu Bing

Some people called this Beijing pizza, it's an old Beijing style snack 'xiao chi 小吃', made with a thin crunchy cornmeal crust topped with Chinese chives (garlic chives), egg and a little dried shrimp for a more savoury flavour. Very tasty.

Pictures are a bit fuzzy due to the hot steam.

Here is the recipe - make an approx. 1 x 25cm round pizza (pancake)

Ingredients:

about 80 g cornmeal, coarse or fine (coarse cornmeal gives a harder and crunchier crust)
about 70 - 80ml (g) of boiling water*, if using cold water use around 60 - 70ml
about 1/4 tsp salt

* you can also use cold water, I find hot water makes the cornmeal absorbed more water making the crust less gritty.

1 heap tbsp of dried shrimps, soak for few minutes and finely chopped (if you don't like dried shrimp can leave this out but it does give a lot of savoury flavour to the pizza)

2 eggs, beaten
cooking oil

about 125 - 150 g Chinese chives or garlic chives 韭菜 (gau choi in Cantonese, jiu chai in Mandarin), finely chopped
a little salt
a little ground pepper
a little sesame oil

Method:

Mix the cornmeal and pinch of salt together then mix with water. Leave to rest for 10 - 15 minutes so the cornmeal can absorb the water.
Add about 2 - 3 tbsp of cooking oil to wok or frying pan, fry the dried shrimp at medium high heat for about 1 - 2 minutes till it is no longer too fishy smelling and getting a bit brown. Turn the heat to high, and drizzle in beaten egg while stirring to form fine bits of scrambled egg. When the egg is set heat off.
Mix egg and shrimp mixture with chives, seasoned with a little salt and pepper.
Using a cold dry frying pan (I used a 30cm non stick frying pan), sprinkle the wet cornmeal onto the pan and spread it out/press with a soft spatula or fingers to form an even thin crust. Then spread the green mixture on top. And drizzle a little cooking oil around the rim of the crust. Lid on and let this cook at medium heat for about 6 - 8 minutes or till you feel the lid is really hot (need the steam to cook the chives) and the bottom crust is golden brown or you may see the crust lifting up around the rim. Then it is ready to transfer onto a plate. The crust is quite solid so it is quite easy to move it.
Sprinkle with a little sesame oil and more ground pepper if you like. Cut into wedges and serve straight away.

sprinkle the crumbs on a cold pan