EDMONTON — Ten years ago, Siu To thought he was going to die — but he had a more pressing question on his mind.

“What happens if people don’t know how to make green onion cakes?” he recalls thinking at the time. “For me, this is very important — that people know how to make green onion cakes.”

For the uninitiated, a green onion cake is a beloved local staple; served everywhere from Chinese food restaurants to festival grounds, it resembles a dense pancake filled with, you guessed it, green onions.

To, 78, is believed to be the man who introduced green onion cakes to Edmonton. He made it his calling to spread the gospel of the green to the masses and has started teaching people how to cook the cakes.

When he first got sick, To shared his knowledge with whoever listened. He handed out his recipe to local newspapers and was willing to drive anywhere within a two-hour radius of Edmonton to teach people how to make the popular, flour-based dish.

“I hoped everyone could learn how to make green onion cake at home,” said To, who fortunately survived his ailments, which turned out to be age-related issues. His desire to share his love of the dish is driven by fond memories of cooking in his hometown in northern China, surrounded by family.

The cakes are so popular that there has even been a movement to make them the official dish of Edmonton. Salma Kaida launched it around five years ago and was one of the first people to track down To.

“There was so much about him that was just larger than life, that it just kind of gave the whole story a little bit of personality and life,” she said of her first meeting with To. “He deserves to be up in the Edmonton history books.”

Since then, it’s become clear that there’s an appetite to find out more about the dish and the man responsible for introducing them to Edmonton.

To came to Edmonton from the Chinese port city of Qingdao in 1978 and opened Happy Garden in Parkallen, considered the first restaurant in Edmonton to serve northern Chinese fare.

Northern Chinese food, he says, features bread more prominently than rice, which is associated more with southern Chinese cuisine. It’s these northern dishes he served up to hungry customers who dined at his restaurant through the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the first iterations of green onion cakes.

But it was during the festival boom of the 1980s in Edmonton that the dish really caught on, finding its way to the Edmonton International Fringe Festival and Taste of Edmonton, where people lined up to sample the newest food craze in town.

It’s the crispy inside mixed with the aroma of the onions that make the dish special, says Wai-Ling Lennon, who hosted To’s first green onion cake cooking class on April 1 at her Edmonton home.

Nearly a dozen people gathered around To to prepare a batch of fresh green onion cakes, served with sambal hot sauce.

“In my life I never dreamed that I’d ever be cooking with Mr. To in my kitchen,” said Lennon, adding she hadn’t heard of green onion cakes until she moved to Edmonton in the 1980s, despite growing up in Hong Kong.

After everyone had scarfed down the still-hot cakes, To told the assembled group that he wants his role in popularizing the well-loved dish to be his legacy.

“Green onion cake is a very simple recipe and (has a) very low cost to prepare, only takes little bit of time and know-how.”

Building on this recent momentum, he hopes to continue giving lessons to people on how to prepare his signature dish. This will in its own way, he hopes, bring people together and strengthen family bonds over the dish synonymous with Edmonton cuisine.

“I really hope that people can enjoy their own kitchen,” he said. “We order everything from the outside, but my message is we can do everything with our own hands.

“Let’s do the cooking at home, is my wish.”

Siu To’s green onion cake recipe:

Ingredients

4 cups of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

450 mL water

1/4 cup shortening

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1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp sesame oil

2 tsp salt

2-3 bunches of chopped green onions

1. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder and water in a large bowl.

2. Knead the dough until texture is the same as your cheek.

3. Cover the bowl with a towel and set aside.

4. Mix together the shortening, vegetable oil, sesame oil, salt and green onions.

5. Spread out the dough into a circular shape and flatten 1 cm. thin with a rolling pin.

6. Spread out the green onion mixture onto the dough.

7. From bottom, stretch the dough and roll it inwards until it is a long, baguette-like roll.

8. Cut it into eight rectangular pieces.

9. Squeeze and pinch the ends shut.

10. Flatten each into a pancake shape and store between two rectangular sheets of parchment paper.

11. Heat oil in a frying pan.

12. Place cake and pan fry until golden brown on each side.

13. Serve with sambal hot sauce.

Correction: This recipe was corrected from a previous version that incorrectly called for one teaspoon of baking soda.

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