羊肉泡馍羊肉泡饃
yáng ròu pào mó joeng4 juk6 paau3 mo4
Xi’an’s great ritual meal: you tear dense flatbread into pea-sized crumbs yourself — slowly, properly — and the kitchen drowns them in rich mutton broth. The tearing is half the pleasure and the whole point.
The story behind it
Paomo grew from the Silk Road kitchens of Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter, where barely-leavened tuotuomo bread kept for travel and softened beautifully in broth. Tradition says a Song founding emperor once ate his dry bread soaked in mutton soup as a poor soldier and never forgot it. How finely you tear your bread marks you as local or tourist; the meal ends with “fish-out” soup and pickled sweet garlic.
Ingredients
- 600 g lamb or mutton on the bone
- Spices: ginger, star anise, fennel, cassia, bay
- 4 dense flatbreads (饦饦馍 — barely-leavened dough, griddled)
- Glass noodles, dried lily buds or black fungus (optional)
- Pickled sweet garlic, chili paste, coriander to serve
Steps
- Simmer the lamb with spices 3 hours into a deep, milky broth.
- Tear the flatbreads into uniform pea-sized pieces — patience here pays.
- Simmer the torn bread briefly in broth with sliced lamb so it drinks the soup.
- Serve scalding with pickled garlic, chili and coriander on the side.