The list of my favorite Jinanese/Shandong food is simply too long to profile each one: Hot and Sour Cabbage, Spicy Shredded Potatoes, Homestyle Tofu, Shredded Pork in Peking Duck sauce, real (yes, real) Sweet and Sour Pork, Fried Peanuts in Vinegar Sauce, Soy Braised Eggplant, Tasty Eggplant (a dish that is deep fried and coated in Sichuan peppercorns and a sugar and vinegar reduction), Stir fried Tomato and Egg, Garlic and Steamed Broccoli, Garlic Chive stuffed Potstickers, dumplings of all varieties (but especially the carrot and lamb ones), Hot and Spicy crawfish... You get the picture.
Today though I want to highlight something that is uniquely Jinanese: the you xuan'r (油旋儿). A cross between a Danish, a cinnamon roll, and something flakier, like a biscuit, these little pastries are the best kind of local snack. And they're 100% old school Jinan.
Here's how they're made:
After rolling a ball of dough out flat, the pastry gets rolled up into the recognizable spiral shape. When it's rolled flat, fillings can also get rolled in. These can be savory or sweet. I've seen ground pork, sugar and butter, garlic chives (a variety I'm fond of), and sometimes even sesame or 玫瑰, which is rose petal jam and sugar (which I really, heartily, endorse). When rolled up the dough looks like a little bell shaped ball, spiraled on the bottom.
Then they're dipped in oil and put on a searing hot griddle.
After they get a little crispy you (without searing off your fingertips) press down on the dough until it flattens into a circle. They'll continue to cook as they're flipped back and forth on the griddle top.
After flattening out the pastries will brown pretty quickly. Once they get a little golden, they're pulled off the griddle and put into a pullout tray/oven drawer beneath the griddle to effectively bake for a while until finished.
What you get in the end are flaky, crispy, buttery pastries that are really excellent as a breakfast item. When they're hot off the griddle there are few things quite as nice.
Stay tuned for more on Jinan, coming soon!