Garlic Chives, Two Ways: Garlic Chive Pancakes, Garlic Chive Omelette

Pretty, pretty, pretty.

[ts]
Although we're somewhat familiar with garlic chives -- that is, we've seen them -- we never really work with them at home. But, they looked so lovely at the store that we couldn't help grab a bunch.

Garlic chives are part of the allium family, like garlic and onions. It's usually used in "stir-fries", or used as one would green onions or chives.

Instead of making it merely one component of a dish, we decided to showcase them.



[ts]
I chopped up the whole bunch and got started.

Garlic Chive Omelette


[ts]
First up, what could be simpler than a garlic chive omelette.



[ts]
I broke some eggs, put them in a pan, added garlic chives, and waited until the egg was cooked. Done!


Garlic Chive Pancake


[js]
One of my most favourite things in the world are green onion pancakes, and everytime I order some, I cannot seem to resist finishing it all!

So I thought, why not use these garlic chives instead of green onions and make garlic chive pancakes!

[ts]
By chance, we happened to have seen an episode of Simply Ming where Ming made Chinese hot water dough. Instead of making green onion pancakes, he was making shallot pancakes.

I almost couldn't believe what making Chinese hot water dough entailed. It is simply hot water and flour. That's it! Simply boil some water and add it to flour until you have a dough. I mean, the simplicity of it! Genius.

So, I made a little bit of dough. For each pancake, I pinched off a little piece of dough and rolled it into a circle. I sprinkled garlic chives onto the circle and seasoned with salt.



[ts]
There's a tad too much garlic chives, but no matter. Next, I rolled up the circle into a cigar shape and coiled it.



[ts]
The coil loosened as I had to let go of it to take a picture. But, I tightened it up and rolled the coil into a circle once again.



[ts]
Little bits of garlic chive poked through, but that's all right. It's now ready for frying. I simply added a little oil to a pan, added my pancakes and cooked them until done.



[js]
I thought we were inventing a new kind of "green onion pancake" here but it turns out we're already late for the party.

From the Wikipedia article, it seems that garlic chives are sometimes used in lieu of green onions in a pancake. I guess my "invention" wasn't really mine at all. ;)

In any case, though, I am happy to have made better acquaintance of this vegetable. From the various names of it, it seems that I might have known it before as "ku chai," and my aunt used to make an Chinese empanada-like thing with ku chai.

Hm, it seems we already have a new garlic chives project in the works.



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