Green Onion Barajas

Something is keeping me busy these days so I have no time to bake and post. I thought I'd share something that I baked during my review days that I still haven't posted.

As you know I love Chinese breads, baked or steamed and the more I love Chinese pastries and all things in between. It's the green onion pancake that is my favorite I must say. Flaky, crispy, chewy with lovely green onion flavor; my cravings get the better of me every time. I really like it that I made yeasted breads before inspired by it here and another one here. By the way, green onion has many names depending on where you live, I've read them as green onions / spring onions / scallions in recipes.

I was craving for it that time and I had a somewhat crazy idea that I really wanted to try so I made these for a win-win situation. A green onion pancake is already very very good but I want to make it better. It's the flakiness that I like best so increasing the layers was the game plan here. My previous breads have sesame along with the green onion but this time I used green onion alone for its flavor to shine.

I called them baraja from Spanish baraja which means a deck of cards because they look like a deck of cards. Baraha in Filipino which obviously came from Spanish means either a deck of cards or just a single card hence I stuck with the Spanish spelling because it specifically means a deck. :)

I made a dough with flour and water and I let it rest for a couple of hours then I made a roux with lard and other meat drippings. If you keep pork fat, chicken fat, duck fat or goose fat at the back of your fridge; this is an application that is worthy of and will greatly benefit from your hard earned delicious rendered fat. All were set so what's only left is the shaping/assembly. I employed a different folding/lamination technique; normally you roll the dough into a thin wide circle, brush it with the roux then sprinkle it with green onions, roll into a jelly roll then coil it into a snail. I cut the dough into 4 portions and this is what I did.

For the simple ones, I filled 2 of the 4 pieces with roux and stuffed a huge amount of green onions in them. I closed them up, rolled them flat and gave each a single and a double turn. If you make croissants, you know what I mean.



I then rolled them flat once again before cooking.



For the complex ones and the ones worthy of the title baraja, I divided each of the remaining pieces into 3 before repeating the procedure above for each piece as you can see in the photo below.



I then stacked the 3 pieces with lard in between each piece before finally rolling it flat. So for the layer count; if you count all the layers in each piece minus the dough-dough interface, you got 13 layers (it means the simple bread above has 13 layers and this is triple of that). With lard in between each piece, you count them as separate layers because it will be a dough-fat continuum so it means 3 layers of 13. So 13 x 3 = 39, a total of 39 layers; a standard deck of cards has 52. Although it's not quite a standard deck of cards, the results are still dramatic and fantastic and can easily be remedied by adding a 4th 13 layer piece.



So the layers were increased but I used another cooking method other than pan frying that makes this a million times better than my regular green onion pancake. I cooked them on a dry frying pan until the surface is cooked and no longer sticks then I transferred them to my preheated clay pot to bake over pebbles to crisp and achieve a rich brown hue. Here are the results.


One of each kind from the first batch after baking.




One of each kind from the second batch. The 39-layered one is on the left.


13 layers.


39-layered green onion baraja.

Both has that nice green onion flavor since I put lots, 250 grams to be exact. It has an intensely savory flavor but somewhat sweet. If you like a bit heat, you can sprinkle some white pepper during the lamination, sesame is also a welcome addition; the flavor combinations are endless and I have some ideas in mind already that I want to try. It is not greasy like a typical green onion pancake, it has a bit of chew and is extra crispy from the clay pot bake. The increased layers changed the texture significantly, its like eating a savory croissant; extremely flaky and crispy with shards falling everywhere. And the smoky flavor and aroma it picked-up from the pebbles and the pot when combined with the green onion's make up for a very old world flavor that is satisfying and comforting that stirs the emotion.


Clear defined layers but not as dramatic as the one below.



Very dramatic layering. It really deserves to be called baraja, I will increase the layers next time to 52 so the name fits it more. When I look at it closely, it does not look just like a deck of cards to me, I think it also looks like a small book with numerous sheets, leaves and pages so I think you can also call this libretto, librito, or librillo. I am so satisfied with this bake and I want to make it again. In fact, I am craving for it right now I type this and look at the photos. Happy baking!

Some photos of orchids from our yard at that time too.


Some orchids past their prime near our mini "taro plantation".



I managed to capture some in their full bloom. Enjoy!