Xincai Dungang Pan-Fried Flatbread 新蔡顿岗油馍

Xincai Dungang Pan-Fried Flatbread (新蔡顿岗油馍) is a layered oil flatbread from Xincai County (新蔡县) in Zhumadian (驻马店), southeastern Henan. It comes from Shengang (沈岗), a village 25 li east of the county town and one kilometre north of the Dungang township (顿岗乡) offices, and was originally called Shengang youmo (沈岗油馍).

How it is made

The base is wheat flour. Henan Economic News lists sesame oil, lard, ginger, spring onion and garlic salt as the other ingredients; a Zhumadian Daily column names sesame oil, chicken fat, spices, ginger, spring onion and salt, mixed in fixed proportions that makers keep secret. The kneading, rubbing and shaping of the dough change with the season, as do the water temperature and the resting time. The column adds that the bread is cooked in a thick iron wok rather than a flat pan, and over a fire of sesame or hemp stalks, which burn gently: wood is too fierce and wheat straw burns out too fast.

Flavour and texture

Fresh from the wok it looks like a plain round cake, but rubbed by hand it falls apart into shiny golden layers as thin as cicada wings, which spread out like copper coins. Picked up with chopsticks, it comes away in many small pieces that still cling together. The crust is golden and crisp and the inside soft and many-layered. Henan Economic News reports that it keeps for up to half a year at room temperature. For a New Year's Eve dinner, the Zhumadian culture and tourism bureau pairs it with Shuishangpiao (水上漂) pickles, which it says boat people first made in the Qing dynasty.

Where it comes from

The Zhumadian culture and tourism bureau dates the bread to the early Ming and says it was sent as tribute to the court in the Ming and Qing. A Shengang native writing in Henan Economic News says he coined its slogan, "Daokou roast chicken in the north, Shengang youmo in the south", in a short article for the Henan Advertising News in the mid-1980s. Dungang youmo was registered as a trademark in January 2006, and in 2010 Zhumadian added it to its second list of municipal intangible cultural heritage.