Sheep Offal Soup 羊杂碎

Sheep Offal Soup (羊杂碎) is a breakfast dish of Yulin (榆林) in the far north of Shaanxi: sheep head, tripe, liver and lungs stewed together in a broth with vermicelli. The Yulin city government names Yuyang District (榆阳区), Shenmu (神木), Jingbian (靖边), Hengshan (横山) and Suide (绥德) as the places where the soup is most distinctive, and calls it a breakfast that local people do not skip.

How it is made

According to the Yulin city government, the offal (head meat, tripe, liver and lung) is mixed and stewed, then cooked in the soup together with vermicelli and finished with chopped scallion. Writing for China News Weekly (中国新闻周刊), the Yulin-born reporter Yu Yuan (余源) stresses that in the Yulin version the broth matters more than the offal: it is boiled from sheep innards and bones, and the noodles are Yulin's own potato vermicelli.

How it is eaten

Yu Yuan describes a bowl as broth and potato vermicelli with only scattered pieces of offal, plus cabbage; potato shreds and tofu strips fried in advance; chopped scallion and coriander; and, added last, chilli oil made with mutton fat. He sets it apart from the offal soups of Inner Mongolia and Beijing, and names it as a breakfast choice in a Yulin day in which every meal can be mutton.

Flavour and texture

The Yulin city government describes the flavour as both sour and spicy, without gaminess or greasiness, and presents the hot soup as a way to keep warm in the cold northern climate.