Dog Meat Soup 狗肉汤

Dog Meat Soup (狗肉汤) in Jixi (鸡西), Heilongjiang, is a dish of the city's Korean-Chinese (朝鲜族) community. Chinese Wikipedia notes that the Jixi area is one of the traditional homes of Korean-Chinese people and lists Korean-style dog meat among its local foods, alongside cold noodles and fish hotpot.

How it is made

The Heilongjiang provincial government, describing Korean-Chinese food customs, singles out dog meat soup as distinctive. The meat has to be boiled until it is very soft, and at the table the soup is seasoned with wild coriander, chilli oil, ground Sichuan pepper, and a dressing made with salt and soy sauce.

How it is eaten

The provincial government writes that a big bowl in the height of summer brings on a sweat that leaves people refreshed, and that the soup is regarded as a tonic that wards off summer heat. A saying holds that dog meat soup in the dog days beats ginseng and deer antler, and the soup is also called "body-tonic soup" (补身汤). Today Korean-Chinese people eat it in every season, but custom keeps dog meat off the table at New Year and other festivals, at weddings and funerals, and when moving house.

Where it comes from

Around Jixi, the Korean-Chinese communities of Jilin township (鸡林乡) in Jidong County (鸡东县) and Yongfeng township (永丰乡) in Chengzihe District (城子河区) have built a restaurant trade on everyday Korean food. An article by the Jixi market regulator on the city government portal names cold noodles, spicy side dishes, dog meat and fish hotpot as the mainstays of these restaurants, which also sell their own makgeolli (麻格里), a rice wine the regulator compares to a slightly sweeter Chinese yellow wine.