Soybean scallion hot cake (大豆蔥油餅)– by product of homemade soybean milk

I think this name sounds better than soybean spring onion hot cake… anyway, this is a dish that popped up in my mind when I was thinking what to do with the soybean puree that’s left after making soybean milk. I tried making soybean patties with the puree before, but they were rather tasteless, and soybean itself is pretty hard to digest. There are a lot of bread recipes that used soy flour and so I thought, why don’t I use it in a dough? I also happened to have a large bunch of spring onion sitting in the fridge that begged to be used. So combining the two ingredients together and you have this wonderful snack (or starter or main dish)!

Like I said previously soybean is pretty hard to digest, so I only used a ratio of 2:1 flour to soybean puree for the dough. Honestly I couldn’t taste any soybean in the cake, but the point of this recipe is more towards using up the by-product of making soybean milk than leaving it as waste (since I don’t have a compost). When I worked on this recipe I’ve also added dried shrimp skin that I’ve used when making savoury soybean milk (I thought the soybean would make the cake taste rather bland). However it turned out quite unnecessary since the dough that’s normally used in making scallion cake is in fact, a pretty tasteless plain dough. So, Leave the dried shrimp out if you don’t have it.

Make one dozen 4″ cakes
Preparation + Cooking time: 1 hour

—Dough—
Soybean puree………. 125g
Plain flour…………….. 250g
Baking powder……….. 1/4 tsp
Hot water…………….. ~70g

—Fillings— (Use more or less according to your taste)
Finely chopped spring onion…….. 3-4 stalks
Dried shrimp skin………………….. 4 tbp (optional)
Sesame oil…………………………. 2 tbp
Salt…………………………………. 1/2tsp
White pepper powder…………….. A few pinches (optional)

—Others—
Oil for frying

1. Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl. Pour in hot water and mix with the dry ingredients. Add soybean puree to the bowl and mix the ingredients together until they come together, knead the dough until it is smooth and soft.
(note: How much water is needed depends on how wet the soybean puree is, if the dough feels too wet add more flour while kneading, too dry add more water)

2. Rest the dough for 1/2 hour.

2 ways to forming the cake:

3a. Roll out the dough into a large rectangle sheet on a floured surface. Spread sesame oil on the sheet, sprinkle salt, pepper, scallion and dried shrimp skin. Roll up the sheet and let it rest for 10 mins. Cut the long roll into 10 smaller rolls. Flatten the rolls using your palm and a rolling pin.

OR
3b. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and let them rest for 10 mins, roll the pieces into small circles on a floured surface. For each circle, spread sesame oil, sprinkle salt, pepper, scallion and dried shrimp skin. Roll up the circle and then turn it into a coil. Flatten the coil using your palm and rolling pin.

4. Add oil in a pan, fry the cake using medium heat until each side turns golden. Serve while hot. (note: I use very little oil when frying my cake, to a point it’s more toasted than fried. Use more oil if you prefer a better crust, which also give a better aroma)

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