A white porcelain plate holds a round golden baked flatbread topped with white sesame seeds, its layers showing browned minced pork, pale minced ginger and green scallion, with wooden chopsticks resting beside the plate.
Shaobing, griddle bread, guokui, naan, spring pancakes and other wheat flatbreads.
Guokui is a round, disc-shaped baked flatbread. The Qianxian type from Shaanxi is thick and dry, while the Juntun type from Pengzhou, Sichuan is small and layered with a seasoned pork filling. It is found in Shaanxi, Sichuan, Gansu and Hubei, with a proposed Shaanxi origin; its precise origin remains unsettled, Qianxian and Pengzhou each have a tale, and this entry assigns no origin date. A 2023 article records Juntun guokui's Chengdu intangible cultural heritage listing in 2013; the listing covers only Juntun guokui.
What
Guokui is a large round baked flatbread. The Shaanxi type is plain, thick and dry in texture; the Juntun type from Sichuan is small, rolled in layers and stuffed with pork.1,2,3,4,5
When
No dated text was found. Origin tales involve the Tang-era Qianling tomb works or Three Kingdoms-era Pengzhou; they cannot establish dates. A 2023 article mentions a late Qing seller of Juntun guokui surnamed Xie and a seller after the 1933 earthquake; Juntun guokui received Chengdu intangible cultural heritage listing in 2013. These dates concern only Juntun guokui.1,3,4
Where
Qianxian in Shaanxi and Juntun in Pengzhou, Sichuan each have their own type; guokui is also found in Gansu and Hubei. Its county of origin is unsettled.1,2,3,4,5
How
Shaanxi type: a dense dough is pressed into a thick disc and baked in a shallow pan, turned until evenly colored. Juntun type: the dough is rolled out, brushed with oil paste, spread with meat filling, rolled up and flattened, then flipped 3 times and turned 6 times in the pan and baked.1,3,4,5
Why
The 2 tales describe it as a portable, durable ration for workers or soldiers, but this is not a documented reason for its origin.1,3,4
Impact and influence
Juntun guokui is listed as Chengdu intangible cultural heritage, and Pengzhou had more than 100 shops in 2024. The listing covers only the Juntun type.4,5
It is said that when the Qianling tomb was being built, thousands of laborers and soldiers baked dough in their helmets over small fires. A shop owner adds in a 2019 self-published article that a young man called Dongwa took his old father's place on the works and taught the method to others.
Told in: A folk tale from Qianxian, told in Chinese Wikipedia and in a 2019 article by a shop owner; the second article names no author and is used here as a source for the tale and nothing more.
Jiang Wei's troops at Juntun
It is said that in the Three Kingdoms the troops of the Shu general Jiang Wei were stationed near Pengzhou. Cooks used a method from Gansu to turn dry rations into baked bread, and the soldiers baked it in their helmets, which gave guokui its name. Chinese Wikipedia tells the Pengzhou tale with Zhang Fei instead.
Told in: A folk tale from Pengzhou, told in a 2023 article from the Pengzhou gazetteer office; Chinese Wikipedia gives a different version.
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
I make the Sichuan Juntun style of stuffed guokui at home, not the thick plain Shaanxi disc of Qianxian; all three recipes I found are Juntun style, and I found none for the plain Shaanxi type. The dough amounts, the filling seasoning, the sesame coating, frying before baking and baking at 160 degrees Celsius for 15 to 20 minutes follow one signed recipe, and the grams and milliliters are my conversions from cups, spoons and ounces. A 30-minute rest for the dough is also given in the other two recipes. That recipe uses a butter and flour paste; I use an oil paste of flour and hot oil instead, so there is no dairy, and dividing the dough into 6 is my own choice. The three recipes bake differently, so I cut a disc open to check that the pork is cooked through.
Ingredients
All-purpose flour 200 g for the dough
Salt 1/2 teaspoon
Boiling water 120 ml
Warm water 30 ml, with 1/4 teaspoon of yeast stirred in
All-purpose flour 2 tablespoons for the oil paste
Cooking oil 2 tablespoons, heated, for the oil paste, plus 1 tablespoon for pan-frying
Minced pork 115 g
Light soy sauce 1 tablespoon
Sesame oil 1 teaspoon
Minced ginger 1 teaspoon
Ground Sichuan pepper 1/2 teaspoon
Scallion 1 stalk, minced
White sesame seeds 3 tablespoons
Steps
Mix the 200 g of flour with the salt, pour in the boiling water and stir until flaky, then add the yeast water and knead into a smooth dough. Cover it and rest it for 30 minutes.
Put 2 tablespoons of flour in a small bowl, pour 2 tablespoons of hot oil over it and stir into an oil paste. Mix the pork, light soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, Sichuan pepper and scallion and stir in one direction until slightly sticky.
Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Roll each into a thin rectangle, brush it with the oil paste and spread a thin layer of filling on it, leaving the edges bare.
Roll each up from one end into a long strip, coil it into a spiral and press it into a disc about 8 cm across. Coat both sides in sesame seeds and press lightly.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan and fry the discs over medium-low heat until golden on both sides.
Heat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius and bake the discs for 15 to 20 minutes.
Cut one disc open at its thick point and check that the pork is cooked through with no pink left, then take them all out. Let them cool a little before eating.
Tips
I spread the filling thin so the pork cooks through while baking, which is my own way.
Frying before baking follows that recipe; I treat the frying as a step that sets the shape and color, which is my own understanding.
