Xixian Flaky Griddle Flatbread 息县油酥火烧

How it is made

The Xi county government describes flour as the main ingredient, worked with raw lard, sesame oil, chopped spring onion and salt, then baked on an iron griddle (铁鏊) and finished over the fire. It calls the method old and the technique distinctive. The Xinyang city government's food page adds that the bread is made from good-quality Xi county flour.

Flavour and texture

The Xinyang food page calls it richly fragrant, crisp outside and flaky inside, many-layered and translucent, and thin but elastic, golden in colour and smelling of spring onion. The 1983 China Travel and Tourism Press guide Zhongguo Mingshi Zhinan (《中国名食指南》), quoted by the county government, records it as oval, wound with fine coils, brightly coloured, breaking as soon as it is picked up, and crisp and sweetly fragrant.

Where it comes from

According to the county government, the bread is said to date from the Ming dynasty, more than four hundred years ago. By the Guangxu reign several households in Xi county made it, and the best known was Xiong Mingde (熊明德), from a family of cooked-food makers, who learned from the master Cai Anren (蔡安仁). In 1942 Peng Zengren (彭增仁) of East Street in the county town became Xiong's apprentice; decades later he took up the craft again and opened a shop of his own. The Xinyang food page says the bread was a favourite of the Empress Dowager Cixi in the Guangxu period.

In March 1980 Peng baked the bread in front of the public at a month-long Henan provincial fair of famous dishes, pastries and snacks in Zhengzhou (郑州). Of the 150 snacks shown, 71 were named famous snacks, and the county government says the Xi county bread ranked near the top.

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