Lugang Ox-Tongue Pastry

The ox-tongue pastry is a specialty of Lugang, the historic trading port in Changhua county that was, in the Qing dynasty, one of Taiwan's busiest harbours and a centre of refined Han-Chinese food culture. The pastry belongs to the broad Taiwanese family of ox-tongue cakes, but Lugang's version is distinct, an elongated, thin, flat oval shaped like an ox tongue, made of a laminated dough with a thin layer of malt-sugar or brown-sugar filling inside, baked dry on a griddle until crisp and blistered. Lugang's old cake shops, many tracing back generations on the restored old street, produce them by hand, the dough repeatedly folded to build flaky layers, the sugar filling melting to a thin caramel in the bake. The pastry was historically a tea accompaniment and a travelling food, its dry crispness keeping it for days. Unlike the softer, rounder ox-tongue cakes of northern Taiwan, Lugang's is thin, elongated and shatteringly crisp, a product of the old port's refined baking tradition that survived the harbour's silting and decline.

A long, thin, pale-gold oval that snaps crisp, the inside a few flaky layers around a thin ribbon of caramelised malt sugar. Dry, lightly sweet, with a toasted-grain aroma; eaten with tea, in crunchy pieces.

The ox-tongue pastry is built on a laminated dough and a dry griddle bake. A dough of plain flour, water and a little lard is made, rested, then rolled out and folded with a thin layer of oil-and-flour paste between, like a rough puff, to build flaky layers. A thin filling of malt sugar or brown sugar mixed with a little flour, to prevent it running, is spread inside. The dough is shaped into a long, flat, thin oval, the ox-tongue form, and baked on a hot griddle or flat iron, dry with no oil, for a few minutes each side, the direct contact browning and blistering the surface while the heat cooks the layers apart and melts the sugar filling into a thin caramel ribbon. The dry griddle bake, rather than an oven bake or deep-fry, is what gives the characteristic dry, shatteringly crisp texture that keeps for days, and the elongated thin shape ensures even cooking and the maximum crispness. The pastry is eaten broken into pieces with tea.