Yang Rou Pao Mo (Mutton Soup with Torn Bread)
A ritual before eating is required! Xi 'an sheep soup with its own bread shredded into bean sizes
Description
The representative Islamic (Hui) soul food of Xi'an (the start of the Silk Road). The diner personally tears a hard flatbread (Mo) into tiny, soybean-sized pieces. The bowl is returned to the kitchen, where it is boiled in a premium mutton broth and served back. The most 'labor-intensive for the customer' dish in the world.
Restaurants serving Yang Rou Pao Mo (Mutton Soup with Torn Bread)
Researching
We are researching restaurants that serve this dish.
On this site you can check dictionary details and, later, places to buy or eat related items.
The Recipe section below is a general reference, not a recipe from the listed shops.
Recipe
Ingredients
- Hard unleavened bread(Mo)
- Mutton
- Mutton bone broth
- Glass noodles
- Daylily
- Coriander
- (Sweet pickled garlic)
Instructions
- [Authentic Recipe & Differences]
- (Bread Prep - Diner's Job) Handed
- pieces of hard, unleavened baked bread (Tuo Tuo Mo) and an empty bowl. The diner sits and spends
- minutes tearing the bread by hand into 'tiny, soybean-sized pieces' (If too large, the kitchen rejects it).
- (Broth) In the kitchen, mutton bones/meat and beef bones are boiled with star anise and black cardamom for 10+ hours into a violently umami, cloudy white broth.
- (Kitchen Finish) The chef receives the 'bowl of torn bread' from the diner.
- Heats the premium broth in a wok, adds the torn bread, sliced mutton, glass noodles, daylily, and wood ears, boiling briefly.
- The bread acts like a sponge, absorbing the mutton broth to its absolute limit until fluffy.
- Returned to the bowl, garnished with cilantro, and served back to the diner.
Learn more Spice, substitutes, tips
Key spices
Overwhelming umami of cloudy mutton bone broth、Black cardamom
Substitutes at Japanese supermarkets
(Tear hard pita bread or naan into tiny pieces and boil in lamb soup)
Pairing
Tang Suan (Sweet pickled garlic) / Bing Feng(Orange soda)
Trivia
[Trivia] 'Pao' means to soak in soup. Because tearing takes 20 minutes, it functions as 'time to enjoy conversation' with friends. Said to originate from Silk Road travelers softening their rock-hard stale rations in hot soup.
Eating tips & etiquette
[Unique Eating] ALWAYS served with 'Tang Suan' (Sweet pickled garlic) and chili sauce. Scoop the broth-soaked bread with a spoon, and bite the garlic in between to reset the lamb fat. Xi'an etiquette demands you 'eat gradually from the edge without stirring', as stirring turns the pure soup into muddy paste.
Allergen
Wheat, Mutton