Hada Flatbread 哈达饼

Where it comes from

According to local accounts, the bread appeared by accident about 150 years ago. Chifeng pastry cooks making bean-paste cakes were left with offcuts of dough that had too much oil, no flaky layer and little filling. They rolled these out, wrapped them round a flaky dough and sugar and baked them, and the result proved so popular that Chifeng's big restaurants all began making it.

The China Local Chronicles Office's database traces a line of masters from the late Qing and early Republic: Yu Quan (于泉) of the Huaxin restaurant (华馨饭庄) was reckoned the best, and he taught Mi Zhengguo (米正国), who taught Sun Jinggui (孙景贵). After Liberation, it adds, cooks from Shenyang (沈阳) and elsewhere came to Chifeng to learn the craft, and the Liaoning Daily (辽宁日报) wrote about it.

How it is made

Two doughs are used. A flaky dough is made from flour and white oil (a crude butter) or butter, and a second dough is made from flour, white oil and water. The water-oil dough is wrapped round the flaky dough and rolled into a round skin. The filling is cooked flour mixed with white oil, melon seeds, sesame, walnuts and sugar; the chronicles database also lists red and green candied shreds (青红丝).

The filling is spread over the skin, which is rolled up from both ends, coiled into a round and rolled out again into a thin cake. It is baked over a low fire and turned gently, since rough handling breaks the flaky layers, until it is golden or mottled like a tiger's skin. It is then cut into halves or quarters.

Flavour and texture

Inner Mongolia Economic Net describes the finished bread as so crisp that it shatters if dropped and melts in the mouth, fragrant and sweet. Newer savoury versions with pepper-salt or meat floss and fruit versions with cranberry or raisins now sit beside the classic sweet filling, and stalls in the old streets and night markets of urban Chifeng bake and sell it on the spot.