To my dismay, she doesn’t measure. She does the dough by feel, but she did say the water should be about half the volume of the flour. When I made this on my own, I used a measuring cup with the said proportions. After some research, I found out that this is a “scalded” dough where a portion of the flour is cooked with boiling water similar to the way you’d make a Hong Kong style milk bread that uses a “tang zhong” of flour cooked in milk and butter until it is pasty.

The measured recipe that worked for me was two cups flour and a bit less than a cup of boiling water, couple pinches of salt, and two tbsps of peanut oil. Add salt and oil to the flour and rub in between your fingers. Then add the boiling water and stir with a wooden spoon or with your hands if you have Nigella’s famous asbestos hands. Grandma Fei does. Knead lightly until it comes together. Dough shouldn’t be too sticky that it sticks to your fingers but it should be soft. When it has come together in a rather smooth ball (no need to make it super smooth like a baby’s bottom) cover with a damp towel or cling wrap and let it rest for one hour.

She insists using high gluten flour “gaojinmianfen” because you need to roll this really thin. It has to be strong enough not to break. We used a Chinese high gluten flour brand that specifically says it has 13% gluten. I asked her about flipping, as in roti, but she says no need as long as you roll the dough really thin, you will get the flaky crispy layers.

For 2 cups of flour, we divided it into 4 portions. Roll it really thin that you can “read a newspaper through it.” Brush or spread the surface of the dough with a bit more peanut oil and spread the filling. We made one with beef and scallions (ground beef, lots of scallions, sesame oil, five spice, Sichuan peppercorn, and salt; mash until pasty). Spread the filling thinly. You may add chili sauce, hoisin, and whatever else you might like. You may roll this up the same way as you saw them do it in Xi’an but an easier technique is to roll in into a log then kind of curl the log into a snail. Then press down with a rolling pin to maybe 1/2″ thickness. I find that the Xi’an method keeps the filling in better and it seems to produce more layers. Grandma Fei prefers the log-to-snail technique.

Pan fry with a touch of peanut oil rubbed onto the pan on medium heat. Around 3 minutes per side worked fine for us. I used a cast iron pan which I think made for a more even browning but Grandma Fei used non-stick so…your choice.

The crust was very flaky and crispy. Just like what I could buy off of bing stalls. However, the leftovers did get soggy. A quick trip in the toaster oven solved that.

I asked grandma Fei about lard. Apparently it used to be the fat of choice for making bing but some years ago the government issued health advisories against animal fat and so she switched to peanut oil. Interesting side note: the use of lard was so common and traditional that the Chinese even have specific names for different types of lard: “banyou” for leaf lard and “hunyou” for any fat rendered from pork. So, perhaps you’re right that the place you ate at did use some sort of animal fat. I’ll try this again with lard for sure!

I hope you try her recipe!