SPICED BEEF FLATBREAD (香酥牛肉饼)
A popular street food from the historic city of Xi’an, spiced beef flatbread is crispy, flavourful and very comforting. A treat worth every bit of effort.
Author: Redhousespice/Photo credit to redhousespice.com
Ingredients
- For the dough
- ▢500 g all-purpose flour
- ▢300 ml water, see note 1
- ▢cooking oil , for coating the dough
- For the beef
- ▢300 g minced beef
- ▢1 tbsp water
- ▢1 tsp Shaoxing rice wine
- ▢1 tsp salt
- For the flour & oil mix
- ▢3 tbsp all-purpose flour
- ▢3 tbsp cooking oil
- ▢1 pinch salt
- You also need
- ▢4 stalk scallions, finely chopped
- ▢2 tsp ground Sichuan pepper, or other spices, see note 2
- ▢cooking oil, for frying
Instructions
- Make the dough
- Put flour, water and salt in a deep bowl. Combine with hands into a dough. Leave to rest for 10 mins. Then knead until soft and smooth (if using a stand mixer with a dough hook, knead around 8 mins on low speed).
- Divide the dough into 10 equal portions. Coat each piece with oil. Cover with clingfilm. Leave to rest for 20 mins.
- Prepare the beef
- Put minced beef, water, rice wine and salt in a bowl. Swirl constantly in the same direction until no more liquid can be seen.
- Divide the meat into 10 portions. Set aside.
- Make the flour & oil mix
- Put the flour into a bowl. Heat up the oil in a pan until it smokes.
- Pour hot oil onto the flour. Stir well then set aside (see note 3).
- Assemble the flatbread (see images in the post above)
- Take one piece of dough. Flatten it with your fingers into a tennis racket shape (see note 4).
- Brush the flour & oil mixture over. Sprinkle with ground Sichuan pepper. Place one portion of the meat on the racket head end of the dough, then top with scallions.
- Wrap the meat with the outer part of the pastry, then roll the dough into a cylinder shape.
- Stand the cylinder on one end. Press it down with your fingers until it’s about 1 cm thick.
- Fry the flatbread
- Heat up the oil (enough to cover the bottom of the pan). Place the flatbreads into the pan (You may need to fry them in two batches in a big frying pan).
- Cover with a lid. Cook over medium heat. Turn the flatbread over when the first side becomes golden brown.
- When the second side is done, transfer the flatbread onto a plate lined with kitchen paper to absorb any excess oil. Serve warm.
