🍽️ Dog-Pee Oil Cake

Odd name, scallion-crisp Qinghai pancake.

“Dog-Pee” Oil Cake is a traditional home-style fried flatbread of Xining, Qinghai — its name is unglamorous, but local affection for it is real. A wheat-flour wrapper is filled with chopped scallion and prickly-ash salt, rolled into a thin round and pan-fried with oil; the odd name is said to come from the way oil is trickled around the edge of the pan while cooking. The finished cake is golden and crisp outside, fragrant with scallion and Sichuan pepper, and softly layered inside. It is both a home staple served to guests and a common street breakfast, best torn apart while hot. Scallion flatbread with a bowl of stew or milk tea is a simple, satisfying Qinghai meal.