The Making of Penang Pancake

Ah Guan Apong - the display reads - is run from a single, modest wheel cart placed at the same spot everyday along the same street - Burmah - in Georgetown, Penang Island. The ingredients and tools of the trade are all stacked and perched on this vehicle and spot. The couple who run this business are modest, quiet and persevering. A piece of their pancake. otherwise known as ban chien kueh in the Penang version of the Fujian dialect, costs only less than 15 Australian cents. What makes them tick? Turnover, reality, a past time or passion in their food craft?

Ingredients Required:

Sifted 175g self-raising flour

3/4 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda

25g of castor sugar

1/2 tablespoon of salt

2 small or medium eggs, lightly beaten

130 ml of low fat milk

130 ml of water

40g of butter, melted and cooled

1 tablespoon of alkaline water

1 cup of peanuts, toasted and grounded coarsely

Extra granule sugar for sprinkling

Directions:

Sift self-raising flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large mixing bowl. Add sugar and salt to mix. Pour in the eggs, milk and water and melted butter. Use a balloon whisk to beat the mixture, until it is well combined. Add in the alkaline water and mix. Stand the mixture, covered, for an hour.

Heat a small non-stick pan over medium low heat. Grease the pan with a little oil.

Measure about half cup of batter and pour it into the well-heated saucepan. Swirl the pan quickly around to coat the entire pan with a thin layer of batter. Sprinkle with some ground peanuts and half a handful of sugar.

Cover the pan with a lid, then cook the batter over low heat for 1-2 minutes or until the centre of the batter looks cooked through the edges have turned golden brown. Fold the pancake into a half-moon and lift it out of the pan immediately.

Above recipe, copyright recipe.sg
Images above at Ah Guan Apong show that they utilise egg rings to contain the dough - and thereby enable preparing several pancakes at once on a large pan.

The vital ingredients, above, the dough, trays of fresh eggs and more.