Datong Braised Rabbit Heads 大同兔头
Datong Braised Rabbit Heads is featured among the local specialties of Shanxi.
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Datong Braised Rabbit Heads (大同兔头) are a seasoned snack with a history tied to the rabbit trade in Datong (大同).
A snack from the rabbit trade
In the 1970s, rabbit meat was exported while the heads were sold locally. Cooking them for sale helped establish a snack eaten by children and alongside drinks.
A local shop's method
At Panglailai (胖来来), a Datong shop profiled by Datong Evening News (大同晚报), the heads are soaked, trimmed, soaked again and washed repeatedly. Old broth is brought to a boil with more than forty seasonings, including Sichuan pepper, star anise and sand ginger. The spices are gathered in a cloth bag before the rabbit heads are added.
Red chilli oil is added during cooking. After a further forty minutes of boiling, the heads rest covered for an hour. The shop's newer flavours include spicy, mildly spicy, five-spice and sauce-fried versions; these variations are made by stir-frying the original cooked heads.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-30. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.