three bowls

From a recent episode of A&E's Intervention.  This is a woman named Dawn.  She is high on meth and talking about voodoo and bad things that happen in jars.

I watched this episode right as I started on my third batch of Scallion Pancake Dipping Sauce, the previous batch having been compulsively and quickly eaten, and I looked at the sauce in alarm:

Scallion Pancake Dipping Sauce is also made in a jar.

(The darkness of the sauce gives you a clue as to the abyss into which you are about to be sunk)

Well, okay, that's just some narrative tidiness, actually I make it in a bowl or a big measuring cup and STORE it in a jar, but you know, me and Dawn, we're really just taking some poetic license to communicate something about some substances we have some strong feelings about.  What we're just trying to say is IT WILL OWN YOUR SOUL.

Or maybe not.  Maybe the combo of pungent soy sauce and rice vinegar, the pingy tang of the scallions, the kick of the red pepper flakes, the brightness of the ginger and the subtle nuttiness of the toasted sesame seed won't be perceived, by your brain, to be a heady and addictive elixir.  

I mean, to each his own, but I'll just say this: most of the time, I'm writing about ice cream or dessert here.  Does it seem in character for someone like me to be saying regularly: "Hey, let's have some brown rice and broccoli for breakfast?"  Or, how about that on one of the rare opportunities I have to cook for people, the thing I always want to do, I'm glad my friend has to leave early because that means more Dipping Sauce for me?

People's behavior changes when they get into the hard stuff.

And it's not like there weren't signs of trouble before.  Here's my quick history with the stuff, a la Intervention's usual montage:

When I lived in NYC, I was a casual Scallion Pancake and Dipping Sauce user.  They were cheap, they were vegan or so the restaurant staff liked to reassure me.  

I think one of my first attempts to figure out how to reverse engineer a recipe was that sauce.  I am baffled now by what I must have done to try to figure it out.  There were no foodies around then, no google searching.  I probably attempted to ask and got no info from the staff and back then, it never would have occurred to me to endlessly pester random cooking people info like I have no shame about now.  But I tried, I failed, and it added to my underlying belief that irresistible tastiness is something you leave the house for.

Then I moved back to Phoenix, which was not only a geographic desert, but also a Scallion Pancake desert! None to be seen anywhere that I could find.  Maybe not enough Mandarin-cooking folk had yet settled there to start a restaurant.   So my desire went dormant.

Moved to Seattle, found Snappy Dragon, I returned to being a casual user.  The expense and logistical challenges of getting it kept it from turning into a big habit.

Then we had a Chinese-themed book club, and while we were ordering from SD, I figured, hey, why not attempt my own Scallion Pancakes and Dipping Sauce while we wait for it to get here.

My pancakes, not so good, but my sauce I was pretty pleased with.  Some of the gals mentioned they liked it better than Judy Fu's, but I thought, well, you know, they might have just been being polite.

I wanted to try the pancakes again, so I did, realizing SD has a Scallion Pancake recipe on their website (and here's my version below with pics of the method). This second batch of pancakes were more successful.  

I tweaked the Dipping Sauce just a bit, and had a bunch left over after the pancakes were done, and so I tried some on brown rice.

And that's where the trouble started.  Now I can't stop. I can't stop.  I mean, I guess all it does is encourage me to eat a simple meal of steamed broccoli, brown rice and a generous glug of the Dipping Sauce.  

And, I guess it's better than eating fried dough, which, I've realized, isn't even the best part of the Scallion Pancake and Dipping Sauce.  Nevertheless, I must caution you strongly.

Please note: part of its addictive quality for me is the perfect amount of burn of the red pepper flakes.  If you are not wired to feel a happy glow when you eat spicy stuff, go with the lower end of the range for that ingredient.

Scallion Pancake Dipping Sauce

• 8 tbls soy sauce
  
• 3 tbls Chiangking black rice vinegar (I've seen a couple recommendations to select this specific brand for this ingredient, so I am sticking with it)
  
• 1 tbl white rice vinegar
  
• 1 tbls finely grated ginger
  
• ¼ cup scallions
  
• ½ to 2 tsp red pepper flakes
  
• ½ tbl sesame oil
  
• 1 tbls mirin 

1. Whisk all the ingredients together.  Blammo, you’re done.  Store it, and your soul, in a jar in the fridge.  If it goes bad before you use it up, well, I don't know what to say.   Count your blessings, I guess, for your admirable restraint.