Muslim style boneless lamb

Tenderest lamb imaginable

Of the three major influences on Beijing's cuisine -- Manchuria, Shandong, and Muslim -- perhaps the most remarkable one is the last. China in no way is an Islamic nation, nor has any of its emperors or presidents ever been a Muslim. But the foods of Central Asia were carried into the northern regions of China over a thousand years ago, and they took root in a land that has enthusiastically welcomed their flavors and aesthetics. 


True, many Chinese converted to Islam over the years, and the northwest and western regions still are home to a great many Muslims. But something happened to the spices and meats and breads that wound their way along the northern Silk Road and finally into the nation's capital: the foods became unmistakably Chinese.


Take this lamb recipe, for example. The meat is simmered for hours until little more than a harsh look makes it fall apart in your hands. And yet it is not at all dry: in fact, this might be the tastiest and juiciest lamb you've ever tried. It is on a par with the most delectable lamb dishes China offers.


But it is more than that: exotic spices that were imported into China -- cinnamon and fennel -- nestle up to Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, ginger, and green onions to scent even the innermost regions of the meat. Soy sauce and North China's beloved sweet wheat paste (tianmianjiang) season the sauce, but in keeping with halal rules there is no rice wine. 


The meat is perfectly delicious as is, but to bring it up one more level, it is fried in roasted sesame oil, which not only flavors the exterior, but also crisps up the edges and offers some of that inimitable Chinese counterpoint of tastes and textures.


This is served simply with some tender Spring Wraps to enfold the meat, along with a sprinkling of either shredded green onions or cilantro, plus the Fried Sweet Wheat Paste, which has a recipe down below, and the Mustardy Cabbage Mounds in the previous post make the perfect accompaniment. You can, of course, use plain sweet wheat paste instead of heating it up, but there is a rawness in the stuff that comes out of a jar, and this responds happily to a quick frying with some sesame oil, sugar, and a sprinkle of soy sauce to balance out the flavors.  


Leftover meat can be used, along with some of the cooking stock, as a terrific topping for plain wheat noodles. Top with some blanched greens and you have an utterly delicious meal practically as an afterthought!

Peppercorns and lamb

Muslim style boneless lamb -- 鍋燒羊肉  Guoshao yangrou
Serves 6 to 8 as a main dish and around 16 people as part of a multicourse meal


Lamb

Approximately 3½ pounds boneless organic, free-range lamb (leg or shoulder; see Tips)

1 leek or 5 green onions, trimmed and cleaned (see Tips)

10 slices fresh ginger

3 whole star anise

½ cup regular, good quality soy sauce

2 tablespoons sweet wheat paste

2 inches stick cinnamon

1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns

1 tablespoon whole fennel seeds

Filtered water to cover

1 cup fresh roasted sesame oil

Garnish

Fried Sweet Wheat Paste Sauce (recipe follows)

Shredded green onions and/or cilantro sprigs

Double the Spring Wraps recipe if you are serving the entire amount

1. Rinse the meat and pat it dry. If your butcher has not bundled the lamb in a net, use kitchen twine to tie it up, which will keep the meat from disintegrating during the long simmering.

2. Place the meat in a pot, cover with tap water, and bring the water to a boil. Simmer the meat for about 10 minutes, at which point scum will have risen to the surface. Dump out the water and rinse both the meat and the pot. Wipe all of the scum off with a paper towel and return the meat to the pot.

3. Add the leek or green onions in one piece to the pot (they are easier to remove this way), as well as the ginger, star anise, soy sauce, sweet wheat paste, cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorns, and fennel seeds. Add enough filtered water to cover the lamb. Bring the pot to a boil and then lower the heat to a simmer. Slowly cook the lamb uncovered for 4 hours, or until extremely tender. Cool in the stock. Remove the lamb from the stock and let it drain; see Tips. (You may prepare the lamb ahead of time up to this point and refrigerate the meat; the stock can be used for other things, as suggested above, and the fat can be easily removed once it is chilled.)

4. Remove the net or twine. Cut the meat in half with the grain so that you have two large slabs. (Fry only as much of the meat as you want to serve immediately.) Heat the sesame oil in a wok over medium-high heat until it starts to smoke and carefully add one half of the meat. Fry it on both sides until crispy. Cut it against the grain into strips and serve with the Spring Wraps, shredded green onions and/or cilantro sprigs, and Fried Sweet Wheat Paste Sauce. To eat, smear some of the sauce down the middle of a wrap, add a strip of the lamb, and tuck in some of the green onions; roll them up together and eat with your hands.

Dark & delicious

Fried Sweet Wheat Paste Sauce – 炸甜麵醬 Zha tianmianjiang

Makes about ½ cup

3 tablespoons roasted sesame oil

½ cup sweet wheat paste (tianmianjiang)

2 teaspoons sugar, or to taste

2 teaspoons regular soy sauce, or to taste

Toasted sesame seeds, optional

1. Pour the sesame oil into a wok and warm it up over medium heat until it is very liquid. Stir in the sweet wheat paste until the oil is incorporated. Taste and add as much sugar and soy sauce as needed. Cool to room temperature.

2. Scrape the sauce into either a container or small dishes for individual service. (This can be made ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator or at room temperature.) Sprinkle with the sesame seeds as garnish, if desired.

Tips

Use any tasty cut of boneless lamb; it should be fatty for the most flavor, and it can be full of connective tissue and tendons (as in the leg), since these will become soft and tender by the time the meat is fully cooked.

Some butchers will provide a net for boneless cuts like this. If yours doesn’t, simply tie kitchen twine around the lamb as for a roast (i.e., tightly around the meat at 1-inch intervals).

If you are using a leek, keep the root end on, split it down the center, and then rinse the leek under running water to remove all of the sand and dirt. Shake the leek dry and add it to the pot without cutting it up further; this makes its later removal much easier.

The brands of sweet wheat paste vary, so use your own judgment when seasoning the sauce. It should not be overly sweet, but rather have a lovely balance of sweet and savory. 

Top and bottom photo credit: Jen Y. Cheng

Spring wraps of North China

Most people when they think of Chinese cuisine picture bowls of rice. But north of the Yangtze River, it is too cold and dry for rice paddies. Up there on the edge of the deserts where sand storms and blizzards are the norm, wheat and other hardy grains have been the starch of choice for countless years.

Noodles, breads, pasta... these are what northerners enjoy. And around the Lunar New Year, spring wraps join jiaozi (dumplings) at family celebrations.

Super thin and tender

Often translated as "Mandarin pancakes," these wraps are actually more like flour tortillas than anything else. Just like their Mexican cousins, they are created out of little more than fine flour, water, and a little bit of fat. That's it. But unlike tortillas, spring wraps are as thin as muslin, usually as wide as one's hand, and very delicate.

As you can tell from the name, spring wraps are meant to be enjoyed during the Lunar Year, and we still have one more week to go before the Lantern Festival (the first full moon that marks the end of the festivities), so here is yet another traditional northern treat to enjoy.

You do not have to be terribly fancy with the fillings (unless you want to, of course). Usually there are at least simple three stir-fries set out with spring wraps, along with some shredded green onions and a sweet wheat paste sauce.

Korean tianmianjiang

Now before I go any further, I want to share yet another one of my gripes about translation with you. A common condiment in North China called tianmianjiang (literally "sweet flour paste") is often rendered into English as "sweet bean paste" or, as in the picture to the right, as "black bean paste." But the main ingredient is not beans at all, and only a bit of soy sauce is added to provide a nice salty edge to this thick black sauce. (Sweet bean paste, for the record, is what sweetened mashed red beans -- hongdousha --is often called, and mixing up the two could lead to some truly disastrous result.)

The correct translation is, then, sweet wheat paste. An elderly friend from Shandong once described how they used to make it when he was a child: steamed breads (mantou) were left to mold, and then mixed with water, sugar, and some soy sauce to ferment. I've made it myself  that way, and it worked out pretty well, but the Korean brands in particular are really quite good and inexpensive, so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to make it myself.

The bing should be translucent

Like just about every other wheat flour-based recipe on this blog, these spring wraps work best with Korean bread flour. The gluten level is just perfect, and you end up with very tender yet tensile tortillas. Do look at the Tips down below, as there are other little things you should keep in mind when making these spring wraps. But otherwise, this really is simpler than it seems. The recipe calls for mixing boiling water into the dough, making this yet another example of our rapidly expanding repertoire of hot dough recipes.


If you are serving spring wraps with some simple stir-fries as your main dish, count on about 4 wraps per person. Otherwise, 2 apiece will probably be just right.


Spring wraps 
Chunbing  春餅 
Beijing
Makes 16 wraps

2 cups Korean bread flour
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons soft lard, shortening, or unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
¾ cup boiling filtered water 
About 1 tablespoon cool filtered water
Roasted sesame oil, as needed

Divvy up the dough

1. Mix the flour, salt, and butter together in a medium work bowl. Stir the boiling water into the flour and mix with a wooden spoon (or in an electric mixer or food processor) until combined; the dough should look flaky at this point. Stir in just enough cool water to make the dough form a solid mass. Turn the dough out onto a clean, smooth, unfloured board and knead the dough until it is smooth and soft. Add extra water or flour only if really necessary, as the dough ought to be perfectly workable at this point (see Tips).

2. Let the dough rest for about 20 minutes under a damp towel or plastic wrap. Roll the dough into an even rope 16 inches long (use a ruler for best results), and then cut the dough into 16 1-inch pieces. Roll each piece between your hands to form a ball, and then flatten the balls into even discs on the board, covering any pieces you are not immediately working on.

3, Prepare a clean, unoiled skillet, preferably seasoned cast iron (see Tips), as well a plate to hold the finished wraps and a clean towel. Pour a few tablespoons of sesame oil into a small bowl and have both a small rolling pin and a pastry brush ready.

4. Place two flattened discs next to each other and brush one completely with some sesame oil. Place the other one on top, matching them up as close as possible, and then use the rolling pin to roll them out into circles about 6 inches or so in diameter. Repeat with the rest of the dough until you have 8 sandwiched circles.

5. Heat the skillet over medium heat until the edge of the skillet is just too hot to touch for more than a few milliseconds. Place one of the sandwiched circles on the skillet and gently shake the skillet back and forth so that the dough slides on the surface and doesn't stick (see Tips). As soon as the dough either puffs up or is covered in bubbles, flip it over to cook the other side. Both sides of the wrap should only be very lightly browned with golden dots (see Tips). Place the cooked wrap in the prepared plate and immediately cover with the towel so that it steams (see Tips). Repeat with all of the circles until done.

6. Remove the bottom wrap from the pile and gently peel the two sides apart; it should be soft and supple from steaming under the other cooked wraps. If it is at all brittle, steam it before peeling it apart, as it will crack and tear once it is hard or overcooked. Place the peeled wraps on top of the other wraps and continue to remove the bottom one, peeling it apart, and returning it to the stack. When all of the wraps have been peeled apart, fold them into quarters. They may be served immediately or cooled, placed in a resealable plastic bag, and either refrigerated or frozen.

Wrap diameter: 6 inches or so

7. To heat the bing, place them in a steamer on either steamer paper or cloth. Steam until hot and soft. Serve immediately.


Tips

Different flours require different amounts of moisture, so be flexible here if you are not using the Korean flour and if you are in a high altitude, for example. Whole wheat flour yields rather brittle wraps, so I don't recommend it unless you have a better source of flour than I do. Using as little additional flour and water as possible makes this a soft, workable dough. You will see that the board in these photos is unfloured, and yet the dough does not stick to the board, the rolling pin, or the hands. This is what you want.

Any type of solid fat can be used here as long as it is fresh, unsalted, and at room temperature.

Other liquid fats can be used instead of the roasted sesame oil, such as peanut or vegetable oil. 

Bubbled up and ready to flip

Try a well-seasoned, unoiled, cast iron skillet for dry frying things like spring wraps. They are virtually non-stick if treated with respect and will last a lifetime; secondhand stores often carry excellent ones. Heat the skillet before you put the dough on it, and this will allow the bottom of the wrap to immediately cook, and then by rapidly shaking the dough loose, you've kept the dough from ever getting a chance to weld to the iron.

Cook the wraps only until they are barely cooked on each side; you do not want big brown spots, as this tells you that the heat is too high. Adjust the temperature so that the dough cooks only to pale golden spots at the most, as this will give you tender wraps that do not break.

The biggest secret to preparing perfect spring wraps is letting them steam under a pile of other wraps before separating them. You will of course want to immediately enjoy the magic and peel them apart, but wait a few minutes. The steam will moisten them just enough so that they turn supple. I learned this by trial and a whole lot of error!