Wuhan Sanxian Doupi

Perfected and standardized at Lao Tongcheng in Wuhan by master cook Gao Jin'an, who turned a plain doupi into the savory three-ingredient version (the restaurant itself was founded in 1929; doupi-making began there in the early 1930s). Doupi itself (a pan-cooked mung bean skin filled with sticky rice) was an older Hubei farmer breakfast; Lao Tongcheng's contribution was scaling it into a single round skillet the size of a wagon wheel and standardizing the three-ingredient (三鲜) topping. Mao Zedong visited Lao Tongcheng twice in 1958 to eat it, praising it as a Hubei flavor worth preserving and the dish entered Wuhan's official restaurant canon.

Lao Tongcheng restaurant, Wuhan, around 1929 — scaled an older Hubei farmer breakfast (mung-bean-skin wrapping sticky rice) into a wagon-wheel skillet and standardized the 三鲜 topping (pork, shiitake, bamboo, dried shrimp). Mao ate one there in 1958. Skin batter must be mung bean plus a smaller share of rice flour; pure mung tears, pure rice goes leathery.

A skillet-sized rectangle: thin mung-bean-and-rice flour skin pressed crisp on one side, glutinous rice packed in a layer above, studded with diced pork, mushroom, and shrimp (Lao Tongcheng's classic 三鲜; many stalls instead use pork, shiitake, and bamboo shoot). Cut into squares and served with the crisp side up. The skin should crackle audibly; if it bends without breaking, the pan wasn't hot enough or the skin was too thick.

The skin batter has to be mung bean plus a larger share of rice (and a little glutinous rice), bound with egg — pure mung bean tears under the weight of the rice, pure rice flour goes leathery instead of crisp. Old-school cooks press the skin in a heavy iron pan with a lard-rubbed cloth, flipping the entire skillet contents as one piece — which is why home versions almost always fall apart at the flip.