Niu Zhongxi Flaky Flatbread 牛忠喜烧饼
Niu Zhongxi Flaky Flatbread is featured among the local specialties of Henan.
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Niu Zhongxi Flaky Flatbread (牛忠喜烧饼) is a layered oil-shortcrust flatbread from Xinxiang (新乡) in Henan, named after the baker Niu Zhongxi (牛忠喜) of Weibin District (卫滨区), whose bread was formally given his name in the spring of 1980.
How it is made
The Xinxiang culture and tourism bureau calls the frying of the shortening, chaosu (炒酥), the key step. Flour and sesame oil (大槽香油) go into a wok in equal parts and are heated over a low flame until the mixture turns into a persimmon-yellow paste, the sumian (酥面) shortening; every flatbread contains about 13 per cent of it.
For every ten jin of flour the recipe calls for fixed amounts of shortening, sesame oil, old-dough starter (老面) and water. After the dough has rested for half an hour, soda is worked in. A two-liang piece of dough is rolled into a strip, spread with a little shortening and pepper-salt seasoning (椒盐), rolled up, pressed flat, coated with sesame seeds and brushed with sesame oil. It is baked first on a griddle (鏊子) until both sides are marked, then for five to six minutes in the oven chamber until it is a deep golden brown.
Flavour and texture
The Xinxiang county gazetteer quoted by the bureau describes the bread as fragrant without being greasy and crisp in separate layers, and says it kept its aroma for more than a month when stored in winter.
Ingredients and fillings
The main ingredients are flour, the fried shortening, water, hulled sesame seeds, seasonings and pepper-salt. Two families of flatbread are made: an oil-shortcrust series with fillings such as jujube paste, mung bean, red bean paste, rose, hawthorn, five-kernel and meat floss, and a flaky-pastry series with ham, sausage, egg yolk, five-spice, osmanthus, sesame or sugar.
Where it comes from
Niu Zhongxi built the technique on what he learned from earlier bakers. According to the Xinxiang county gazetteer, in 1940 he moved to the Xinxiang county town with a few apprentices and set up a business making nothing but flatbreads. In 1989 the bread won the Ministry of Commerce Golden Tripod award (金鼎奖) for catering products, in 1993 the Xinxiang city government named it a "Xinxiang unique" (新乡一绝), and on 28 June 2008 its making technique entered Xinxiang's first list of municipal intangible cultural heritage.
More dishes to compare
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Neixiang Jar-Oven Sesame Flatbread 内乡缸炉烧饼 →
Both are named Henan flatbreads, but the Xinxiang bread is built on a fried flour-and-sesame-oil shortening and baked on a griddle and then in an oven, with sweet or savoury fillings.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.