In Search Of: Jian Bing

Thursday, January 10. 2008

Looks pretty good, don't it? I sure wish I could make one properly.

The crepey thing is a Beijing & Shanghai street food item usually called Jian Bing. They're a terrific breakfast item, and wildly popular among the American expatriate community, enough to earn the name "Egg McMao". However, I can't find an authentic recipe for one in English.

Interestingly enough, there are numerous films and pictures of how to make one on the web, so I really just need the crepe batter recipe. First, you pour the batter onto a crepe pan and swirl it around:

Next, you break an egg over the crepe and let it cook on the crepe:

You sprinkle sesame seeds & green onions on the egg, then flip the crepe to cook the egg side. Then you smear it with hot bean paste, and fold it over deep-fried wonton wrappers.

Easy, fast and delicious. Avenuefood made an attempt to reverse-engineer the recipe, which worked fine except that the crepe didn't taste quite right. They suspect that authentic crepe batter has millet flour or something in it. I suspect they're right.

Surely someone out there, on the web, has that batter recipe ... in English?

Posted by The Fuzzy Chef in Recipes at 20:08 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

Defined tags for this entry: china, chinese, crepe, recipes, street food

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I look forward to hearing more of your search.

#1 cz on 2008-01-14 04:27 (Reply)

There was some discussion of jian big on Chowhound here: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/348707 that talks about proportions of mung bean flour to cornstarch and millet flour that may help. I was just thinking about jianbing and decided to Google it and stumbled on your post. I haven't had one for 17 years! I was hoping to find someplace in the SF that makes them since I'll be there next week and if any place would have them, you'd think it would be there.

#2 Kitt (Homepage) on 2008-04-07 22:29 (Reply)

Kitt, I don't know any place to get jian bing in San Francisco; if I did, I'd get their recipe!

#2.1 Fuzzy (Homepage) on 2008-04-08 07:08 (Reply)

I've just returned from a trip to China and fell in love with these things, and have been searching for a recipe as well. I've found this youtube howto in Chinese, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA-NsOcX6_8&feature=related, and this is what I can gather about the crepe recipe with my limited grasp of the language. whole mung beans, 400 parts (perhaps a weight?); millet, 100 parts; salt, 5 parts; five spice powder, 5 parts. wash mung beans, and then split with a mill. soak split mung beans along with millet in water. Then I hear both 10 hours and 12 hours in relation to the soak time. Mill beans and millet till it is a thin paste. Add salt and five spice powder (to taste). The video also mentions two sauces which I don't know, but one is called mian jiang i think, and I've seen reference to tian mian jiang online, which bears some passing resemblance to hoisin sauce apparently. The other, I'm at a loss. If you have some leads on the sauces, I'd be much obliged.

#3 naus on 2008-04-14 15:12 (Reply)

no conclusion to the recipe search?

#4 Winner on 2008-06-23 00:10 (Reply)

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