My mum still constantly scolds me and my siblings - “you’re forgetting your culture”, “don’t speak English!”, “stop acting like a guo lo!”
As a child growing up in a very small town in the middle of nowhere Ireland I was embarrassed about my Asian heritage. We were the only Chinese family in that town. Actually, there weren’t that many of us in the whole country at all. I hated that my parents made us that stereotypical Chinese immigrant family who owned a Chinese restaurant. I wanted to be like every other white kid in my class who ate spuds everyday and played on the green every weekend with their friends. Instead, I had to help out at the restaurant and on rare occasions that I had friends over, teach them how to eat noodles with chopsticks as I struggled to find a fork in our house.
Thankfully, as I matured I began to realise how lucky I was to be different and understand the hardship my parents went through so that I can study Medicine (by choice!) in Sydney today. I’ve learnt to embrace my roots but also, I just cannot fathom life without proper Chinese food.
I am still a confused child though and never know how to answer the question ‘where are you from?’.
Chinese Pancakes
2.5cups all purpose flour, 1cup hot water, bunch spring onions (diced), sea salt, olive oil
Sift the flour in a large bowl with a pinch of salt. Make a well in the centre and add the water. Using your hands draw the flour in, mixing and turning, until a dough just forms. Turn it onto a clean floured worktop and knead for about 5 minutes. The dough should be silky and elastic. Put the dough back into the bowl and cover with a damp tea towel. Allow it to prove in a warm place for at least 30 minutes.
Roll the dough out on clean floured worktop to and divide it into 5 equal pieces. Take one piece and roll out into a round shape with a rolling pin until it’s about 2mm thick. Grind some sea salt on the rolled out dough and brush generously with oil. Sprinkle with diced spring onion. Now roll it up kinda like spring rolls to enclose the spring onion but don’t close off the sides. Then coil it into a round disc and tuck in the end bit underneath. (It should resemble the first image above.) Repeat with the remaining for segments.
When you’re ready to cook them heat a frying pan with some oil. Roll out your discs one by one until it just less than 1cm thick. Cook each side for about 2 minutes or until it’s golden and flaky, adding more oil to the pan if necessary.
Place it on kitchen towel to absorb the excess oil while your cooking the rest of them. Then cut into wedges and serve while hot. I like to eat them with congee or some dipping sauce.