Mung-bean vs wheat blend, egg compensation, and crispness - calibrated for a non-stick pan.
Pick the regional style, pancake count, egg/no-egg, and crispness. The card gives grams of mung-bean flour, wheat flour, water, egg, and scallion.
Jianbing recipes vary wildly. Tianjin street vendors use 60% mung bean; Shandong home cooks use 80% wheat. Both are correct for their style. Without specifying, recipes default to all-purpose flour - which produces a crepe, not a jianbing.
Anyone whose first jianbing came out as a wheat pancake. Cooks trying to replicate the yellow-green mung-bean look from a Beijing breakfast stall. Vegans making a Chinese breakfast crepe.
Mung-bean flour is what gives jianbing its yellow-green color and bean aroma. Pure wheat flour gives you a Shandong-style crepe that is good but not jianbing. The egg is added at the second-cook stage (90 seconds after the batter hits the pan), not mixed in. Crispness is controlled by batter thickness AND pan heat, not just one.
Mung-bean flour grind varies. Too fine and it clumps; too coarse and the batter is gritty. If you can't find mung-bean flour, grind dried mung beans in a high-power blender and sift.
Where do I get mung bean flour? Asian grocery, or grind dried mung beans in a blender.
Can I skip soaking? You will get gritty batter. Soak 4 hours minimum.
Why is my jianbing tearing? Pan too hot, or batter too thick. Drop pan to 160 C, thin batter with water.