Chive pocket

What it is

A chive pocket (韭菜盒, also 韭菜盒子) is a large round of wheat dough folded over a filling of chopped garlic chives and sealed into a half-moon. Egg and glass noodles usually go in too, often with tiny dried shrimp. Some cooks add dried tofu or minced pork. It is cooked on a hot plate until the outside is crisp in places.

Where it came from

The chive pocket is a wheat snack from northern China, usually traced to Shandong, and is traditionally eaten at Lunar New Year. It is also made in parts of southern China.

In Taiwan it is sold at soy milk shops (豆漿店), the breakfast places that also make sesame flatbread (燒餅) and egg crepes (蛋餅). Tianmu, in Taipei's Shilin District, once had many military dependents' villages (眷村), and older residents from those communities still drop in at one local soy milk shop every day or two.

The snack had a burst of fame in February 2022, when the freestyle skier Eileen Gu was seen eating one while waiting for her score at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Searches and takeaway orders for chive pockets in China jumped in the days that followed.

How it is made

The wrapper is a wheat dough, sometimes made with hot water and egg, and shops often roll it by hand to order. Chopped chives are mixed with scrambled egg, glass noodles (冬粉) and dried shrimp (蝦皮). The filling goes on one half of the round, the dough is folded and the edge pinched shut. It is then shallow-fried in oil or dry-griddled (乾烙). One shop on Taipei's Hulin Street (虎林街) adds chunks of fried dough stick to the filling, sets each pocket on an iron plate, then finishes it over open flame in an iron drum.

How to eat it

It is a breakfast food, bought at soy milk shops along with soy milk, sesame flatbread and fried dough sticks. Lightly sweetened iced soy milk goes well with it. Some people dip it in black vinegar mixed with a little sesame oil. Ask for 韭菜盒 at the counter.