Yanwo Mutton Soup 盐窝羊汤

Yanwo Mutton Soup (盐窝羊汤) is the mutton soup of Yanwo (盐窝), a town in Lijin County (利津县) in Dongying (东营); the Dongying Daily says Lijin grew up on the Yellow River. The Lijin county government lists it on its local food page as Yanwo whole-sheep soup (盐窝全羊汤), and the Shandong provincial publicity account Shandong Xuanchuan (山东宣传) names Lijin's Yanwo mutton soup among the distinct mutton soups of Shandong's cities.

Ingredients

People in Yanwo have long raised and slaughtered sheep, and fattening them became one of the town's main industries, according to the Dongying Daily (东营日报). Shandong Xuanchuan calls Yanwo Shandong's "first town of the meat-sheep industry". A Yanwo restaurant owner told the Dongying Daily that the mutton in his town all comes from Yellow River tan sheep (黄河滩羊), which drink Yellow River water and are fed maize and peanut vines, and that the meat tastes fragrant without a strong mutton smell and is fatty without being greasy.

Flavour and texture

The Dongying Daily describes the soup served in Yanwo as a steaming bowl of milky white, rich and fragrant broth with tender, rich mutton.

How it is eaten

One place to try it is the Old Street and Long Lanes (老街长巷) at Nanling village (南岭村) in Yanwo, which the Dongying Daily describes approaching across the Yellow River by the Shengli Bridge (胜利大桥) and along the river embankment. The Dongying Daily dates the street to 1369, the second year of the Hongwu (洪武) reign of the Ming dynasty. There the paper pictures visitors drinking tea, listening to local opera and taking the soup with Lijin pan-fried buns (利津水煎包), which are crisp outside and soft inside. Yellow River mouth tan-sheep mutton appears alongside the buns and Beiling meatballs (北岭丸子) among the street's best-known traditional foods.