Midwinter soup from Ningxia

The longest night of the year is a time for celebration in China. And that means that it’s a time for eating traditional foods. The Winter Solstice usually occurs on December 21 or 22, as its arrival is determined by the lunar calendar. My husband and his family always look forward to bowls of sweet sticky rice balls (tangyuan) that evening. However, depending upon where you are, this cold night might instead be a time to enjoy some Jiaozi or lamb soup. 

Ningxia puts a special spin on this custom, for the Winter Solstice means one thing and one thing only: a big bowl of spicy lamb soup with thick batons of mung bean jelly (or liangfen) floating in there among some mushrooms and tomatoes. And, I have to tell you, the liangfen is a touch of genius: the cubes turn into enticing, gently textured pillows that really stand out against the rich bits of lamb.

The liangfen starts out white

Some people also toss in chunks of potatoes or some Jiaozi, but since this is best served with bread, I find they turn this into a bit of a carb overload. Just have the jelly ready to go before you start this recipe, and this will come together instantly.

Ningxia Midwinter Soup

Níngxià yángròu fěntāng  寧夏羊肉粉湯

The Northwest

Serves 2 as a main meal

Soup:

3 or more ounces boneless lamb or goat meat

1 teaspoon regular soy sauce

½ teaspoon dark soy sauce

Making this jelly is a snap

2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

2 tablespoons shredded fresh ginger

3 green onions, trimmed and julienned, whites and greens kept separate

1 teaspoon coarse chili powder, or less if you are chili-adverse

½ teaspoon five-spice powder 

4 black mushrooms, fresh or dried and plumped up, trimmed and thinly sliced

4 whole canned Roma tomatoes, cut into ¼-inch slices

2 teaspoons black vinegar, or to taste

4 cups unsalted mushroom stock or water

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

I recipe for Mung Bean Jelly, through Step 2

To serve:

Handful of cilantro

Marinate the meat -- I used goat

Grilled Breads, or any other raised baked breads from this region

1. Cut the lamb into ¼-inch strips. Place them in a small work bowl and toss with both kinds of soy sauce. While this is marinating, prepare the rest of the ingredients. If you have any bones or fat on the meat, consider tossing this into the stock for extra flavor; remove them before you pour the stock into the vegetables.

2. Set a wok over medium-high heat and add the oil when it is hot. Swirl it around and add the ginger and onion whites. As soon as they are fragrant, sprinkle in the lamb and marinade, and toss these around until the lamb is barely done. Scoop this out into a clean work bowl, but drain the oil back into the wok.

Mushrooms with spices

3. Over medium heat, add the chili powder and five-spice powder to the oil and swirl them around before raising the heat to medium-high and adding the mushrooms. Toss these quickly to release their fragrance, and then add the tomatoes and vinegar. Pour in the stock or water and bring this to a boil before lower the heat to a simmer. The soup can be made ahead up to this point.

4. Cut the mung bean jelly into fat batons around ¾-inch wide and an inch or so long, or whatever size you like. Slide these into the soup and simmer them gently for around 10 minutes to heat through; they will turn from an opaque white to almost translucent. Add the lamb, then taste and adjust the seasoning with whatever you like. Ladle the soup into large bowls, top with the finely chopped onion greens and coarsely chopped cilantro, and serve with the bread, which may be torn into smallish pieces and tossed into the soup.

Lamb & the Dowager Empress & a puzzle

Whenever I come across a name for a Chinese dish that has a strange explanation, I get curious. 

This happened with sachima—Rice Krispies Treats as seen through a Chinese lens—and although there were all sorts of twisted explanations that tried to shoehorn this word into an acceptable story, look what I came up with: the word means “dog nipples dipped in syrup” in Manchurian.

The same feeling that all was not right hit me every time I read about this dish. The roundabout tale went invariably as follows: The Dowager Empress Cixi was presented with this new preparation for lamb, and she was so impressed that she asked the chef what it was called; flummoxed at this unusual attention, the chef could not find the words to answer. The Dowager Empress mused over the dish and commented, “It’s like honey” (ta si mi).

Now first off, just about every story about a Beijing dish’s beginnings winds up in the Dowager Empress’s fancily embroidered lap for some reason. I’m not quite sure why, but there you have it. 

And second, this lamb does have a touch of sweetness, but it’s not overt. And so, confused as ever, I started digging.

My first guess was that this might be another Manchurian word, but that didn’t yield anything. Then, I looked more closely at the dish and realized that this was a riff on Muslim-style cooking. Hmm, I thought, I bet this is a Turkic word. 

And although I couldn’t find a Uyghur dictionary, that language is related to Turkish. A quick search through a Turkish one prompted a delighted shout from my desk, for tașim means “to bring to a boil.”

At last, an explanation that at least makes a bit of sense...

Simple yet divine

Tasimi
Tāsìmì 它似蜜 

Beijing
Serves 4 to 6 

1 pound lamb loin, or other tender cut of lamb

4 teaspoons ginger juice (see Tips)

4 teaspoons corn starch

2 teaspoons regular soy sauce

4 teaspoons Shaoxing rice wine

1 tablespoon dark vinegar

5 tablespoons toasted sesame oil (or so)

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons sweet wheat paste

1. Rinse the meat and pat it dry. Cut in across the grain into thin slices, and then place the lamb in a medium work bowl. Stir in the ginger juice, cornstarch, soy sauce, rice wine, and vinegar. Cover the bowl and marinate the lamb for at least 20 minutes and up to 3 hours.

2. Heat a wok over high, and when it starts to smoke, add the sesame oil. Swirl the oil around to coat the lower half and add the lamb, as well as any marinade. Break up any big clumps and then lightly brown the meat. When all of the lamb is just barely done, add the sugar and sweet wheat paste, toss the meat well, and serve. 

Tips

To make ginger juice, coarsely grate some fresh ginger; you don't have to peel it first. Then, wad it up in your fist before squeezing the juice out over a bowl. This is a lot easier than it sounds, as fresh ginger is very juicy.

Putting the tsal in salsa

Momo and buuz are two very, very iconic dishes of (respectively) Tibet and Mongolia. No discussion of China's many cuisines would be complete without including both a mention and a recipe.

That being said, the following recipe is a bit of a change-up on these traditions. This all started when I was reading the food memoirs of the wonderful writer Liu Zhenwei and came across his discussion of shumai in a chapter on Inner Mongolia. 

Mr. Liu noted that the restaurants “Gufengxuan and Maixiangcun in Guisui, Suiyuan [part of present-day Inner Mongolia] are without a doubt number one in the world... the shumai of Guisui in fact have fillings of beef and lamb, with the addition of mushrooms, large scallions, and minced ginger.”

Now, that might already sound pretty good, but there’s nothing particularly innovative there, no ingredients that make the imagination go wild. But read on: “The skins used to wrap the ‘shumai’… are rolled out extremely thin, and after they have been steamed, they appear translucent, reflecting the brown of the filling, with a circle of white folds on top.”

Tibetan salsa!

These shumai have skins therefore that are much more elegant than what we have become accustomed to seeing on momo, buuz, and the shumai of the rest of China. (If you would like to make the traditional momo and buuz that are much heftier and more filling, see the Variations at the end of this recipe.)

And so I went to work trying to re-create these delicate steamed packets of long ago. In the process of fooling around with my food (a practice I heartily endorse), I used hot stock instead of cool or warm water to make the wrappers. 

The results are ethereal.

One more thing: I became excited all over again when I started putting two and two together and came up with eight. The reason? Tibetans make a dipping sauce out of tomatoes, fresh chilies, green onions, garlic, salt, and cilantro. To a dyed-in-the-wool Californian, that was nothing less than a recipe for salsa. 

And the Tibetan name for this salsa? Tsal.

Go figure.

Steamed lamb or beef dumplings

Momo and Buuz

Tibet, Mongolia
Makes 36 dumplings and serves 3 to 4

Filling:

1 pound ground lamb (or beef), preferably at least 20% fat

1 tablespoon finely minced ginger

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

5 green onions, trimmed and finely minced

¼ cup finely chopped celery

¼ cup finely chopped cilantro

3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

2 tablespoons unsalted stock

2 teaspoons sea salt

4 large mushrooms, finely chopped

2 teaspoons cornstarch

 

The delicate variation on a theme

Dough:

1½ cups Korean or Chinese noodle (high gluten) flour, plus extra flour as needed

5 tablespoons boiling hot, unsalted chicken stock, strained

Tibetan salsa (tsal):

3 or 4 ripe red tomatoes

1 fresh red chili pepper (as hot as you like), finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

2 green onions, trimmed and finely chopped

¼ teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon fresh peanut or vegetable oil

Small bunch cilantro, coarsely chopped

1. Start this recipe at least 4 hours before you want to serve it to give the filling time to chill. Mix together the filling ingredients and stir them rapidly in one direction until they are light and fluffy. Cover the container and refrigerate.

2. While the filling is getting cold, make the dough by placing the flour in a medium work bowl; use chopsticks to mix in the boiling chicken stock. As soon as it forms clumps, empty the dough out onto a smooth surface and knead it until it is smooth and bouncy, only adding flour if it is truly necessary, although the dough should not stick to your hands or the board. Cover the dough and let it rest for at least 20 minutes.

3. Next, make the salsa by chopping the tomatoes into ½-inch dice. Place these in a small work bowl. Add the chili pepper, garlic, green onions, salt, and oil. Toss the salsa, cover, and refrigerate until serving time, and then stir in the chopped cilantro; taste and adjust the seasoning.

4. Roll the dough out into a rope 36 inches long and cut the dough into 36 even pieces. Toss these lightly with flour and then roll each piece out into a circle about 3 inches wide. Divide the filling into 36 pieces and add one piece to the center of the circle. Gather the edges up in a frill so that the dough is puckered and pressed together over the top of the filling in a curved seam. Repeat with the rest of the dough and filling until done.

5. Grease 2 steamer baskets and place them over boiling water for around 5 minutes to warm them up. Arrange as many shumai in the baskets as fit comfortably without touching, stack and cover the baskets, and steam them for around 15 minutes. (Do this in two batches, if necessary.) Serve immediately with dark vinegar for dipping.

Variations:

Triangular momos

Momo. To make momo, double the amount of flour and add enough warm filtered water to form a soft dough. Knead and let it rest, and then cut the dough into 36 pieces. Roll each piece out into a circle about 3 inches wide, and then form a triangular packet by bringing the edges at 0°, 120°, and 240° together in the center and then sealing the seams (see the photo to the right). Steam as directed above and serve with the sauce.

Buuz. To make buuz, double the amount of flour and add enough warm filtered water to form a soft dough. Knead and let it rest, and then cut the dough into 36 pieces. Roll each piece out into a circle about 3 inches wide, and then make an oval packet by pinching the top seam together in a braid pattern. Steam as directed above and serve without a sauce.

A proper Xi'an biscuit with my tea...

It’s been said that this dish has been around for over a thousand years and was a staple on the arid plains of North China along the Silk Road, which makes a whole lot of sense, for sheep and goats are the few types of domestic animals that can live up there and thrive.

Shaanxi has traditionally been a relatively poor part of China, but rich in history and culture, for this once was the seat of empire for around ten dynasties. The royal families settled here where it was the most dangerous, their troops massed around them to fend off attack by ancient enemies to the north and west. And that is one of the many reasons why the food here is so wonderful, especially around Xi’an in spite of it being almost unknown outside of the country. 

One dish that showcases the ability of these hearty northerners to combine practicality with an intense enjoyment in good, honest food is this rich lamb soup.  But what makes it unique is not the soup itself – it’s the chewy bits of biscuit that bob around the top in place of the more common noodle.

English... er, Chinese biscuits

Since this comes from a high desert area where water is precious, noodles would have been a luxury, so something else had to take their place. And some brilliant cook whose name has been lost in the dust of time came up with the brilliant idea of these biscuits which taste like the best English muffins ever when they are fresh off the grill and then dry into leathery hardtack after a couple of days.

Some friends from Xi’an told us that decades ago, the men who pulled the huge drayage carts in Shaanxi were so poor that they could only afford one meal a day. So, at 10:00 in the morning, they’d down a huge bowl of this nutritious and filling soup before going out to work as hard as any man ever could work.

We too used to enjoy enormous washbasin-sized bowls of this soup in winter at a small stand on Yanping North Road in Taipei, the stand run by old soldiers from this area. Their food wasn't fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but it was always good. We would always peruse their menu and consider all the options before ordering, as usual, some of their lamb soup with biscuits. 

The soup would arrive in a cloud of steam along with one biscuit per person, and we’d crumble bits of it into our soup (using a knife to wiggle free the really hard parts) as we worked our way to the bottom of the bowl so that each bite would be chewy from the bread, and then we’d be so warm and full that we could walk miles afterwards. 

Rested dough

The traditional hardtack has been improved upon here; what we used to have with our soup was almost impossible to tear, especially if the biscuits weren't that fresh. 

These, though, are light as feather in comparison, at least when eaten fresh. Hot and sweetly toasty, they complement the filling soup perfectly, and are equally marvelous with some butter and honey for afternoon tea.

Lamb soup with biscuits 
Yángròu pàomó  羊肉泡饃

Shaanxi
Serves 4 to 6 as a main dish

Soup:

1½ pounds boneless lamb stew meat (or, if you’re feeling either adventurous or traditional, try mutton or goat), or beef stew meat

Filtered water as needed

10 cups lamb or beef stock, preferably unsalted

1 teaspoon fennel seed

1 teaspoon whole Sichuan peppercorns

2 whole star anise

1 small stick cinnamon

2 or 3 dried Thai chilies, optional

2 inches fresh ginger, smashed with the side of a cleaver

5 green onions, smashed with the side of a cleaver

1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

Biscuits:

2 cups Chinese flour (or 2 parts American all-purpose mixed with 1 part pastry flour), plus extra as needed

⅔ cup cool filtered water

1 teaspoon yeast

Garnishes:

2 bundles cellophane noodles soaked in cool water for at least 30 minutes

¼ cup dried wood ear mushrooms soaked in hot water for at least 1 hour

Handful of cilantro, chopped

Sweet Pickled Garlic,  plus some of the sauce, or balsamic vinegar

Chili sauce or Chili Oil as desired

1. Start this at least 2 hours before serving if using a pressure cooker, or at least 5 hours with a regular pan. To make the soup, cut the meat into pieces no larger than an inch square. Place them in a pressure cooker or pan, cover with filtered water, and bring the water to a boil. Simmer the meat for around 10 minutes, then dump out the water and the scum, rinse the meat in a colander, wash out the pressure cooker or pan, return the meat to the pan, and cover it with the stock. (If your pressure cooker or pan is relatively small, use less stock and add the rest later when the soup is finished.) Place the fennel and Sichuan peppercorns in a tea ball or tie in a piece of cloth; add this to the stock, as well as the star anise, cinnamon, chilies, ginger, green onion, and salt. Cover the pressure cooker, bring it to a boil over high and then cook it for about 45 minutes, or until the meat is very tender; in a regular pan, bring the stock to a boil, lower the heat to a gentle simmer, and cook the lamb until tender, adding more water as necessary to keep the meat submerged. Taste the lamb and soup and adjust the seasoning. (The soup can be prepared ahead of time and either refrigerated or frozen; as with most soups, it is better the next day, and the hard fat can be scraped off easily before the soup is reheated.)

2. While the lamb is cooking, start the biscuits: place ¼ cup of the flour in a medium work bowl and stir in both the water and the yeast; cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the yeast rise for about an hour; the batter should be bubbly. Stir in 1½ cups flour to form a stiff dough and then turn the dough out on a smooth surface. Knead in about 6 tablespoons dough; the dough will be ready when it is no longer tacky and is very firm. Cover the dough and let it rest for at least 20 minutes.

Soaked cellophane noodles

3. Lightly knead the dough and cut it into 6 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a ball and use a rolling pin to roll each ball into a circle about 3½ inches wide (see Tips); no extra flour should be necessary, but sprinkle on a bit if the dough sticks. Heat a large, nonstick or cast iron skillet over medium heat until drops of water hiss into steam when flicked onto the skillet. Place as many of the biscuits in the pan as will fit rather loosely; I usually do this in two batches. Cover the pan and let the cook over medium heat for 3 or so minutes, or until the bottoms are golden. Flip the biscuits over, cover, and cook until the other side is golden, too. Test one with a wooden skewer to ensure that it is cooked all the way through (the skewer should come out clean), remove the biscuits to a plate, and cover with a clean tea towel. Repeat with the rest of the biscuits until done.

4. Cut the soaked cellophane noodles in half and drain them. Cut the wood ear mushrooms into a thin julienne. Add these to the soup and simmer until the noodles are translucent, about 10 minutes.  Ladle the soup into large bowls, sprinkle on a bit of cilantro, and issue each diner a biscuit.  Serve while the soup is steaming hot, and have extra soup and biscuits ready for seconds.  Offer the garlic, vinegar, and chili sauce on the side for those who want to add a traditional Shaanxi style zip to their soup.

Dimpled surface

Tips

Make your own stock, if you like, by cooking 3 pounds bones in enough water to cover; either skim off the scum the forms or rinse the bones as you do the meat in Step 1. In a pressure cooker, the stock should take an hour or so; in a stockpot, figure on about 3 hours.

Notice the dimpled top of the uncooked biscuit on the right; I found that if I rolled the dough out another half or so inch wider and then used the palms of my hands to lightly roll the edges of the circle and gently make it smaller again, the biscuit wrinkled up a bit on top and had a nicer texture when it was cooked.

Stellar Tibetan meatballs

Out in what one writer calls “China’s great back beyond” – the arid lands stretching from Mongolia in the north to Tibet in the vast southwest – leafy vegetables are in short supply, grazing lands are seasonal and sparsely covered with hardy grasses, and the meats are pretty much limited to lamb and mutton and goats, mainly because sheep and goats will eat just about anything as they are herded from one grazing ground to another by nomadic families. 

What that means is that folks in Tibet are pretty good when it comes to turning these animals into some spectacular dishes.

Another wonderful thing that has made Tibetan food into a hidden treasure is its historical relationship via the Karakoram Pass with its Kashmiri neighbors to the south. 

This can be seen very clearly here in the lush, warm spices that are first browned in oil to release their fragrance… fenugreek (see the top photo) and turmeric are not found anywhere else in China as individual flavorings (rather than in ready-made curry powder), and they are one of the many reasons the foods of Tibet are so unique.

If you enjoy gardening, try sprouting some fenugreek seeds in a small pot... the seedlings smell astoundingly like maple syrup!

Shabril

Tibetan meatballs in a yogurt sauce 
Shabril

Tibet
Serves 4 to 6 

Meatballs:

1 pound ground lamb or goat

½ teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds

4 teaspoons peanut or vegetable oil

2 medium onions, chopped

½ teaspoon powdered turmeric

4 cloves garlic, chopped

4 teaspoons finely chopped fresh ginger

4 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

Veggies and sauce:

12 large Chinese black mushrooms, stemmed and sliced

Spices & onion in the oil

12 red radishes, sliced

2 tablespoons regular soy sauce

½ cup filtered water

1 cup full fat yogurt

2 green onions, trimmed and finely chopped

1. Place the ground meat on a cutting board and use a cleaver or knife to chop it again until it is fine and fluffy; form these into 12 small meatballs. Place the fenugreek and oil in a wok or frying pan and heat over medium-high until the seeds turn a toasty brown. Add the onions and tumeric and cook them, stirring frequently, until the onions are browned. Remove the onions to a work bowl and add the garlic, ginger, and remaining oil to the wok. Stir these around over the heat to release their fragrance and add the meatballs. Fry the meatballs while swirling the wok around so that they brown all over. Scoop them out and place them in the bowl with the onions.

2. If you have lots of oil floating around in the bottom of the wok at this point, pour off all of it except for a light film. Toss in the mushrooms and radishes, and quickly fry them until the mushrooms are lightly browned. Add the soy sauce and water to the wok, and use this to deglaze the caramelized juices at the bottom of the wok. Return the meatballs and onions to the wok, bring the sauce to a boil, and then cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer the meatballs with the vegetables for about 15 minutes.

Radishes brighten up the dish

3. Bring the wok to a full boil and then remove it from the heat. Stir in the yogurt and adjust the seasoning. Pour the meatballs into a serving dish, sprinkle with the chopped green onions, and serve.

Tips

Get really good quality lamb here; goat is great, too, if you can find it.

Fenugreek and turmeric can be found in better Western-style grocery stores, but I like to get mine from busy Indian markets where I can savor all of the aromas and find something new to eat. 

Be sure to not let the sauce boil again once you have added the yogurt, as this will cause the sauce to break into white globs.

Serve this with rice or griddle breads to soak up all the luxurious sauce.

Khan burgers

Mongolian cuisine is well-known for being about meat – lamb or mutton, to be more exact – and little else. And this makes a lot of sense when you are talking about cooking and eating on endless grassland surrounded by little more than a bunch of sheep. I mean, you eat what’s available.

But in the cities like the capital of Inner Mongolia – Hohhot – vegetables and seasonings are in readier supply, and so the foods there are much more refined and flavorful, as in this delicious dish. The traditional recipe for hushuur calls for a mere scattering of cilantro, but I've come to adore this with huge handfuls of both cilantro and parsley, as they fade into the background with their aromas, while lightening the meat and making it more supple and moist.

This recipe takes the idea of a hamburger and transforms it into something incredible. Instead of a thin patty that tastes of nothing but meh-quality meat, these are more like juicy meatballs lightened with big handfuls of cilantro and parsley, pan-fried until the exteriors are crispy and well browned, and then seasoned with a savory, slightly spicy sauce. It’s nothing short of a revelation.

Mix with your hand!

Soy sauce and other seasonings are added to the ground lamb, too, which then leak out into the pan as the meat fries, and then even more flavors are tossed in to the gutsy sauce. I like to pour off most of the oil once the burgers have been browned, leaving the heavier juices still roaming around the bottom of the pan. The final addition of the stock can be used to deglaze the caramelized bits.

Hushuur is perfect over noodles or rice, but perhaps best when accompanied by a simple grilled bread that both soaks up the sauce and offers a quiet counterpart to all of the fireworks in this dish.

As with all Chinese ground meat dishes, this lamb benefits from being chopped up again, which makes the meat fluffier and helps it absorb the liquids better. Use a cleaver or heavy chef’s knife to whack away at the lamb until it has softened up, and then swirl it around in a work bowl, using the fingers of one hand as your personal spoon and spatula. Once you get used to mixing meats this way, it will be difficult to go back to clumsy utensils.

Mongolian fried lamb burgers with cilantro 
Hushuur

Mongolia
Serves 4 to 6

Lamb:

Pan-fry the burgers

1 pound ground lamb (see Tips)

2 green onions, trimmed and finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

2 tablespoons regular soy sauce

¼ cup rice wine or unsalted stock

2 teaspoons sugar

1 cup chopped cilantro

1 cup chopped parsley

Oil for frying

Sauce:

½ cup unsalted stock

1 teaspoon smoked paprika or mild ground chilies

Sea salt to taste

Garnish:

Chopped cilantro

1. Place the lamb on a chopping board and chop it again with a cleaver or heavy chef’s knife until it is light and fluffy. Use your blade to scrape all of the meat up and into a medium work bowl. Toss in the green onions, garlic, soy sauce, rice wine or stock, and sugar, and stir the meat around in one direction until the liquids have been incorporated. Pick up clumps of the meat and throw them back into the bowl to make the meat even more tensile. Once it looks fluffy again, stir the cilantro and parsley into the meat, again stirring in only one direction. (The lamb can be prepared ahead of time up to this point and refrigerated for no more than an hour; if it needs to sit longer than that, hold off on adding the onions, garlic, cilantro, and parsley until you are ready to cook the lamb.)

Smoked paprika becoming smoky

2. Divide the lamb into a dozen even pieces and roll them into balls. Flatten each one into a fat little burger. Place a large skillet over medium-high heat until it is nice and hot, and then film the bottom with a couple tablespoons of oil. As soon as the oil starts to shimmer, arrange the burgers in the skillet so that they do not touch each other. Fry them on one side until they are browned and then turn them over and brown the other side. Pour off most of the oil.

3. Add the remaining stock and paprika to the skillet, turn the heat up to high, and quickly reduce the stock to a syrupy sauce, turning the burgers over in the sauce. Serve the hushuur hot with an extra sprinkling of cilantro as garnish.

Tips

Use boneless lamb, if you prefer, and chop it finely yourself. Be sure to remove any tendons (silver skin) and large pieces of fat.

Adjust the seasonings and greens as you like. Use all parsley instead of cilantro, if you wish, or lots of green onions. 

Xinjiang style lamb kebabs

Kebabs are popular all across Central Asia, from Turkey in the west and up through North China. The differences in preparation are relatively minimal, depending upon the type and cut of meat, as well as the seasonings.

Out on the far west edge of China is a region they call Xinjiang ("the new borderlands"), which also has the old and much more romantic English name of Chinese Turkestan. A title like that summons up images of caravans on the ancient Silk Road that used to connect Xi'an in the east with Venice in the west, passing through fabled oases like Samarkand as spices and silks wound their way across the harshest terrain on the planet.

When we finally got enough money together to make our long-delayed trip to China, the first place on my list was China's wild west. It was the one place I was as yet unfamiliar with, but the Silk Road had haunted my memories ever since my youth, when I had read and then dreamed about bazaars and shifting sands, wanting to smell the aroma of whole lambs roasting over open fires. 

Cumin, chili pepper, & garlic

This is Central Asia seen through a Chinese prism, a region where Cossacks, Mongolians, Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Hui Muslims have as much claim to membership in China's glorious spectrum of cuisines as the Hans, their cultures intermingling with glorious abandon as spices from one region creep into and improve another, where cooking methods evolve as new generations grow up with the blood of many tribes mingling in their veins.

Take, for example, this wondrous skewered lamb dish from Xinjiang. It is something that speaks of an Uzbek mother somewhere upstream further west along the Silk Road. And yet, where Uzbekis might prepare this with lemon juice, onions, cilantro, coriander seeds, salt, and garlic, in Xinjiang all of these flavors are discarded (save for the salt and garlic so beloved by Chinese of every stripe) in favor of a simple dry rub of ground chili peppers and powdered cumin. As a result, this meat dish is ineffably Chinese and yet completely halal.

Dry rub as the Gobi

The traditional recipe for this kebab calls for oil to be mixed in with the meat. But I use the unsung and under-appreciated shoulder here (as in most of my lamb dishes) and have found that the fat already on this delightful part of the animal is just the right amount to both baste the meat as it cooks and provide a buttery flavor. Also, if you are cooking indoors, the extra oil often will cause billows of smoke, so try it without the oil first and see if you like it.

This recipe is so easy that I am always tempted to make a couple of pounds of the meat tossed with the dry rub for fast dinners later on in the week. It freezes well this way, too, and only needs to be defrosted before threading it onto the skewers.

You can vary the spices as you like, adding more chili pepper if you really enjoy hot foods, or tossing in some minced ginger. The cumin is what really makes this dish especially tasty, and for this I like to use freshly ground cumin seeds, which are much more aromatic than the fusty powder sitting on the back of your shelf behind an ancient jar of ground cloves.

Serve these kebabs with steamed rice or Xinjiang-style pilaf (coming soon), or with any number of flatbreads. I especially love these tasty nuggets wrapped up in a freshly-made thin griddle bread (also coming soon) with no more than a few sprigs of cilantro for contrast and a very unkosher cold beer to wash it all down.

Happy 2013!

Served on griddle breads

Xinjiang style lamb kebabs 
Xīnjiāng yángròu chuàn 新疆羊肉串 
Xinjiang

Serves 4 as an entree

1 pound boneless lamb shoulder (see Tips)

4 to 6 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons ground cumin

2 tablespoons coarsely ground chili pepper

2 teaspoons sea salt

1. Start this recipe at least 6 hours before you wish to serve it. Use 8 small or 4 large metal or bamboo skewers for the kebabs; I like long, forked bamboo skewers (see Tips), as the pair of tines helps hold the meat easily, and the sharp ends make threading the meat relatively easily. If you are using bamboo skewers, soak them in warm water for a few hours before you cook the meat.

2. Rinse the meat and pat it dry with a paper towel. Trim off and discard any silver skin or tendons, but leave on the fat. Cut the meat in long, thin strips against the grain; the length of the strips doesn't matter, but the meat should be about ¼-inch thick. Place the strips in a resealable plastic bag or a plastic container.

Marinating lamb

3. Mix the garlic, cumin, chili pepper, and salt together, and then use this as a dry rub for the meat. Toss the seasonings with the meat and lightly massage it into each piece so that the lamb is well seasoned. Close the bag or container and refrigerate for at least 6 hours and up to around 5 days, depending upon your fridge (again, the prepped meat also freezes well).

4. Prepare either a ridged grill pan for indoor cooking or an outdoor barbecue for grilling. Thread the meat onto the skewers, but don’t compact the meat too tightly so that it cooks evenly. Cook the meat on a grill pan or barbecue over medium heat. Allow one side to slightly char before turning the skewer over. The lamb is done when the second side is also lightly charred. Let the meat rest for about 10 minutes before serving.

Tips

I like lamb shoulders because the meat is flavorful and tender without costing much. Also, if the butcher bones it first, this makes life a whole lot simpler. If you buy a whole shoulder, you can divide it into smaller portions and freeze whatever you are not using within the next couple of days.

Organic lamb really shines in this dish, as it is all about the quality of the meat.

Pretty bamboo skewers

Like many spices, cumin is best when it is freshly ground. I buy whole seeds and then grind around ¼ cup of the spice to have on hand for my far west binges, as this way it stays fresh and fragrant.

For my money, the best skewers are double-tined bamboo. First of all, they are relatively cheap but still can be used a few times before discarding. The ends are needle sharp, which makes threading the meat a breeze, and the two tines allow the meat to not only be skewered, but also wrapped around the bamboo as needed. Very convenient. Just be sure to soak them well so that they don't burn up.