Linchuan Beef Offal 临川牛杂
Linchuan Beef Offal is featured among the local specialties of Jiangxi.
Linchuan Beef Offal (临川牛杂) is beef tripe, intestines and other offal cooked with chilli in Linchuan District (临川区) of Fuzhou (抚州), Jiangxi. China National Radio's news site (央广网) sums up its place in local life with the saying 'if you have not eaten the beef offal, you do not know Linchuan' (不食牛杂，不识临川), and reports that a Linchuan day starts with a bowl of it.
How it is made
The CCTV food programme Flavours (味道) showed a Fuzhou version in which four kinds of chilli go into the pot in three separate additions, giving a numbing, hot and savoury result.
One third-generation offal cook in Shangdundu (上顿渡镇), quoted by China National Radio, drives at half past five each morning to an abattoir 10 km away to buy the freshest offal from yellow cattle (黄牛). He says he can tell at a glance how long each animal's offal needs in the pot, twenty minutes for one and ten for another. His menu turns the offal into more than twenty dishes, by hard stir-frying over high heat, slow stewing over a low flame or steaming.
Where it comes from
Luojia Lane (罗家巷) in Shangdundu town, Linchuan District, is locally famous as the 'beef offal street'; more than ten offal shops line the lane from its northern entrance, and their cooking skills are mostly handed down within families. When the cook's aunt and father ran his shop in the 1980s, it was a single stall with a coal stove and a clay pot in which tripe and intestines simmered from morning to night, seasoned only with salt and chilli. China National Radio calls it a former 'offal dish' (下水菜) of the old wharf side that has become a representative of Jiangxi cooking.
China National Radio reports that Linchuan Beef Offal received the title 'Famous Chinese Snack' (中国名小吃) in 2018. In January 2025 the Fuzhou municipal government placed the Linchuan beef offal making technique (临川牛杂制作技艺), nominated by the Linchuan District Cultural Centre, on its seventh list of municipal intangible cultural heritage.
How it is eaten
The usual pairing in Linchuan is a portion of beef offal with a bowl of soaked rice noodles (泡粉): smooth, tender noodles against fresh, fiery offal. Locals also meet friends at an offal shop in their free time to eat over a little liquor.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.