New Year’s Mu-Shu with Pancakes

Best wishes to our Chinese friends around the world celebrating the start of the 2026 Year of the Fire Horse! “Horses arrive and Success follows.”

Mu-Shu with Chinese Pancakes are not a traditional Chinese New Year’s delicacy. But they are delicious, and Chinese food is a fixture of the Jewish Christmas/New Years experience.

So as a Jew – the only time I will write that – I made Mu-Shu with Pancakes on New Years’ Eve. I made them again the next week. They are just that good.

I learned how to make Mu-Shu with pancakes in Manila, Philippines when our daughter Rachel was a baby. Now Rachel is 30 years old and has requested the recipe. So here we go.

Spoiler alert: the secret to tasty, paper-thin Chinese Pancakes is sesame oil.

We were posted to the American Embassy in the Philippines from late 1995 to mid-1997. Manila, Philippines was the classic Foreign Service experience – bad air, bad water, and few amenities we take for granted. But hey, we had the annual US Marine Ball.

We also were fortunate enough to have experienced Filipinos staffing our home. Our wonderful team knew every thing that foreign families transferred to Manila did not know. They knew how to source anything that we needed available locally and generally made our lives as “normal” as possible.

They boiled water around the clock for safe drinking water; changed our babies’ little outfits constantly to evade fire ants (attracted to sweat); stood in line to pay bills in cash (not safe to use credit cards), and knew where to buy the freshest XXL eggs. (I went one time to see a room of Filipinas sorting eggs fresh from hens into baskets based on size.).

Back in the day, we ordered everything unavailable in Manila from mail-order catalogs (anyone remember those?) and then waited for the diplomatic pouch. Imagine my excitement when Ken Hom’s Asian Vegetarian Feast: Tempting Vegetable and Pasta Recipes from the East (1988) arrived.

This afternoon I found the 1997 paperback version on Amazon. ) Ken Hom was an inspiration for veg food in Manila, – known more for Lechon (roast pig) than tofu!

Ingredients

For the first part of the recipe – Chinese pancakes – you need is flour, hot water, and sesame oil. Once you master the pancakes, the rest is a breeze. You can use the pancakes to hold any filling you like.

Chinese Pancakes

1 1/2 cups flour

1 C hot water

1-2 T sesame oil

Instructions

1. Stir the hot water gradually into the flour, until the dough holds together.
2. Kneed the dough – if it is a little too wet or too dry adjust the level of flour and water.
3. Return to a clean bowl and cover to let it rest for 30 minutes – it won’t rise and just benefits from resting for half an hour or so.
4. Kneed the dough again, adding a bit of flour if it too sticky to handle comfortably, and form the dough into 18 or so balls of similar size.
5. Now for the magic: Pour the sesame oil into a small custard cup or similar sized bowl. Then take 2 of the dough balls and dip one into of them into the sesame oil. Put the second ball on top of the first and roll them both out into a circle about 5 – 6 inches in diameter. They won’t be perfectly round. They will be delicious.
6. While you are rolling out the balls, heat up a non-stick pan to medium low. Cook the doubled-pancakes for approximately 2 minutes on each side. You may find that the top pancake cooks much more quickly. So just keep an eye on them.
7. As soon as each set of doubled-pancakes are cooked, remove from heat and peel them apart. If the first few tear, don’t worry, just keep going. You can trim off any rough edges with kitchen sheers. You will be amazed at how quickly you master the process, resulting in delicious paper-thin Chinese pancakes!

The Mu-Shu filling takes a little time to organize, but is super easy to make and SO delicious.

Mu-Shu Vegetables with Protein of your Choice

Ingredients

1 T sunflower or other oil of. your choice (would not recommend olive oil)

1 T sesame oil

1/2 small onion or large shallot, shredded

1 T finely chopped garlic

1 T grated ginger

1/2 oz dried Chinese Cloud Ears, rehydrated (soak in hot water) and shredded

1/2 oz dried shitake mushrooms, rehydrated (soak in hot water) and shredded

1/2 C shredded carrots

1 C shredded green cabbage / savoy cabbage

1/3 to 01/2 lb of Red, Yellow, Orange Peppers, cut into matchsticks

4 scallions, shredded

6 oz beansprouts, washed and with tails removed.

8 oz surimi (imitation crab), cut into matchsticks or Tofu similarly cut into matchsticks

1. Heat the sunflower oil and 1/2 T sesame oil in a wok or other similar pan with sloped sides over medium heat. Add shredded onion/shallot and cook until transparent, before adding garlic and ginger. If you are using tofu, add it now, together with tree ears, shiitake mushroom, carrots and cabbage. Stir fry for approximately 5 minutes until the carrots and cabbage are tender crisp and caramelized.
2. Add the Peppers, scallions, beansprouts and surimi (if using) and stir fry for another 3 – 5 minutes until well combined and fragrant, together with the remaining 1/2 T sesame oil.
   

Assemble the Mu-Shu Pancakes
The only remaining ingredient you need for assembly is Hoisin sauce, available these days in most grocery stores or Asian stores. Spread a small amount of Hoisin sauce on each pancake before adding 2 T or so of filling.

Enjoy!!