THE LAMB IN WINTER

Warm up with Shaanxi’s hearty mutton and flatbread soup

羊肉泡馍：冬日御寒暖胃佳品

commoners, especially local Muslims.

Though historically, yangrou paomo was a folk dish enjoyed by commoners, the cooking process requires precision to get the taste just right. High-quality mutton should be thinly cut and cleaned, and brought to boil with seasonings like scallion, ginger, and fennel. The bread must be “pulled, torn, pinched, and shaken” into pieces the size of soybeans, according to a new cooking standard published in 2016 by the Xi’an government.

It’s considered amateurish to stir the soup with chopsticks before eating.

Shaanxi natives eat the bread close to the rim of the bowl first to preserve the delicate taste of the liquid, and end by drinking the soup to refresh the spirit.

For tourists who want to try authentic yangrou paomo, the restaurant Tong Sheng Xiang in Xi’an, founded in 1920, uses a cooking method that is listed as a national intangible cultural heritage item. Lao Sun Jia, another Xi’an restaurant, claims its flatbread and mutton soup as “the best yangrou paomo under heaven.”