New York City’s Yaso Tangbao is known primarily for excellent soup dumplings, but there are lots of other Shanghainese street food delicacies on the menu, like these simple yet satisfying scallion pancakes. You’ll just need to procure a couple special ingredients, either from a local Asian market or online: medium gluten flour (which may be labeled Asian all-purpose flour; a common brand to look for is Sunshine), and pork sung (also known as pork floss or rousong, among other names), fluffy dried shredded pork that adds meaty flavor and ethereal texture to lots of dishes.

Here, the flour is mixed with sesame oil and scallions to form an easy batter, quickly cooked in hot oil to a crepe-like consistency, and rolled up around the pork floss and a fried egg; make the yolk as runny—or not—as you like it, or even scramble the egg instead. If you have a gram scale, you can precisely weigh out your ingredients, but the standard measurements given should work well. And in no time, you’ll have an absurdly simple, fast, and delicious breakfast or snack! Double, triple, or otherwise increase the ingredient amounts to make multiple pancakes. If you don’t eat pork, you can try this with fish floss instead (it’s way more delicious than it sounds).

Try serving these with any sauce you like: hoisin, Tangy Soy Dipping Sauce, Chile Garlic Sauce, or Sriracha. And if you’re looking for more ways to use that giant tub of pork floss, try it on our Ginger Chicken Jook (Rice Porridge) recipe, and our Basic Asian Broiled Tofu recipe.

  • Yield: 1 pancake
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Total: 5 min 
  • Active: 5 min  

Ingredients (7)

  • 6 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon medium-gluten flour (90 grams)
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil (12 grams)
  • 1 teaspoon chopped scallions (5 grams)
  • 1 egg
  • pork rousong to taste
  • neutral oil, like canola, vegetable oil, or peanut oil, as needed
  • optional: hoisin, tangy soy dipping sauce, Sriracha, etc. for serving

Instructions

  1. Mix the medium-gluten flour, sesame oil, and chopped scallions together to form a batter, then form into a single pancake with your hands.
  2. Heat a pan over medium-high heat, add enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan, allow oil to heat up for another 30 seconds or so, then add the pancake and cook about 1 minute on each side. Remove to a plate.
  3. Fry the egg in the hot pan, then place on top of the pancake and sprinkle with pork rousong to taste. Roll up the pancake and eat!