Meiling Spicy Braised Goose 梅岭鹅王

Meiling Spicy Braised Goose (梅岭鹅王) is a hot, numbing goose dish from Nanxiong (南雄) in Shaoguan (韶关), northern Guangdong. Its name means 'Meiling goose king'. Nanfang Daily calls it one of the ten famous dishes of Shaoguan, and it is also on the list of Nanxiong's ten famous dishes.

How it is made

Local farm geese are the main ingredient. The Guangdong Study Platform (广东学习平台) describes the goose being stir-fried and then braised with a specially prepared sour bamboo shoot, spring onion, ginger, star anise, Sichuan pepper and chilli powder. Goose, chilli and ginger are named as the three core ingredients by the Meiling goose restaurant association of Zhuji (珠玑镇), a town of Nanxiong, which said at its founding in 2022 that it would manage and buy them jointly for its member restaurants.

Flavour and texture

The meat is described as tender and fragrant, with a hot, numbing heat compared to Sichuan cooking; the Guangdong Study Platform says the heat has led many visitors from elsewhere to wonder whether they are really still in Guangdong. Shaoguan borders Hunan and Jiangxi, and its cooking mixes the chilli of those two neighbouring provinces with the Cantonese taste for natural flavours.

Where it comes from

Nanfang Daily reported in 2020 that along the more than 30 km of national road G323 from Nanxiong city to the Meiguan Ancient Road (梅关古道) scenic area, more than 160 restaurants, hotels and farm restaurants all served the dish, many of them farm restaurants using Meiling Spicy Braised Goose as their signboard. The Nanxiong government had organised a cooking contest for the dish the year before. In 2022 the Zhuji association had 55 member restaurants.