芝麻酱烧饼Chinese Sesame Biscuits

These are another one of Mike's and My Favourite Snacks. We just recently discovered Barbecued Shao Bing (Shao Bing is the romanization of the name of this snack in Chinese). You can get these barbecued up just like Xinjiang Naan a number of posts back; basted with chili garlic sauce and sprinkled with cumin and Chinese chili powder as they roast over the coals.
These are also a common breakfast, try one stuffed with egg, just like American egg Mcmuffin, and eat it along with a glass of soy milk. Another common way these are eaten is along side hot pot. They have a crispy outside and soft fluffy layers with a light fragrance of sesame and spices inside which makes them perfect for soaking up flavorful broth like you would with a piece of sour dough or baguette. You can also sprinkle the dough with chopped green onion or another leaf green or even minced meat before the dough is rolled up jelly roll style. To go even further add a sweet or savory filling on top of the rolled up sections of dough and form around the filling. The varieties are endless. I had something similar to this in Taiwan that had a filling that consisted of ground pork, cabbage, green onion, garlic, ginger and sesame oil (same as for Jiao zi or chinese dumplings) and they took a pipette, stuck it into the middle and gave it a squirt of chili garlic sauce. I can't tell you how delicious they were.

Chinese Sesame Biscuits

1.5 cups water
1 tsp. yeast
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup mix of half sesame oil and half peanut, soy or veg. oil
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. black pepper powder
1 tsp. ground fennel
1 tsp. Chinese five spice powder
white sesame seeds

Put warm water in a bowl and mix in yeast and baking powder. Add flour a little at a time until it forms a very soft and slightly sticky dough. Wash the bowl and then swirl 1 tsp. oil around the bowl. Put the dough back in the bowl and move around the bowl to coat it in the oil. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes. Meanwhile make a rue by heating the sesame oil, when the oil starts to bubble add the flour and salt and stir to combine.

Cook the oil flour combination, until it turns a reddish brown color, constantly stirring and being careful not to burn. Let this cool and then mix in cumin, pepper, fennel and five spice powder.Mix water into the spiced rue until it is a thick but pourable consistency. You may not even need any water.

Put about 1-2 tsp. oil on a flat clean surface and spread oil over the surface evenly. Roll out the dough to about 1 1/2 foot by 2 feet.

 Drizzle just enough spiced rue sauce over the dough to thinly coat while leaving a 1 inch border (you may not use all the sauce) and brush the sauce evenly over the dough with a pastry brush.

Roll up jelly roll or cinnamon roll style and then divide the rope into 10 pieces

 Form each piece into a ball pulling all the edges up over the top and pinching them together to seal.

Pour about 3/4 cup white sesame seeds onto a plate. Press one side of each ball into the sesame seeds and flatten the ball to about 1/2 inch thickness.

Heat enough oil to cover the bottom of a frying pan over medium low heat. Fry the biscuits sesame side down until golden brown and then flip to the other side and fry until both sides are golden brown. You will need to strain the oil or use new oil for each round of frying as some of the sesame seeds fall off into the oil while frying and you don't want burnt sesame seeds sticking to biscuits fried after the first batch.

Here are two ways (also mentioned in the introduction) that we enjoy these:

 For breakfast with egg. These are used as sandwhich bread and stuffed with all sorts of things in China. Just about anything elese you want to put in there would be delicious.

BBQ Shao Bing- This is my absolute favorite way to eat Shao Bing. One of our favorite BBQ restaurants in Beijing served BBQ shao bing. Mike and I got them everytime we went. I asked them what Chili sauce they used and they responded that it was this one:

Lee Kum Kee Garlic Chili Sauce: They have two sauces with the same name, choose the one in the bottle (like pictured) not the jar. This sauce is awesome chili sauce so if you can get your hands on some DO!

Instruction for BBQ Shao Bing:

As you BBQ them you baste them with Chili sauce and sprinkle on Chinese Chili Powder (recipe follows) and whole cumin seeds:

Chinese Chili Powder

1 1/2 tsp. ground chillies

1 Tbsp. ground Szchewan peppercorns (these are hard to find outside China. You can just leave them out)

2 Tbsp. finely ground black peppercorns

1 Tbsp. ground ginger

1 Tbsp. garlic powder

1 1/2 tsp. sea salt

2 Tbsp. chili flakes-no seeds

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