Yulin Pounded Meatballs 玉林肉蛋
Yulin Pounded Meatballs is featured among the local specialties of Guangxi.
Yulin Pounded Meatballs (玉林肉蛋) are balls of beef or pork pounded by hand to a paste in Yulin (玉林), Guangxi. The version the Yulin culture and tourism bureau documents is Shinan meatballs (石南肉蛋) from Shinan town (石南镇) in Xingye County (兴业县), known as "兴业一绝" (Xingye's unrivalled speciality).
How it is made
Traditionally the meat is yellow-cattle beef or pork. It is trimmed of sinew and membrane, cut into thick slices and laid on a smooth bluestone slab, where it is beaten with a wooden mallet and turned as it is beaten until it becomes a paste. Li Jiajian (李家健), an inheritor of the technique whose family has made the balls for three generations, says the blows must be even and not too fast; beat too quickly and the heat cannot escape, and the meat turns to mush.
The paste goes into a large earthenware crock with food-grade alkaline water (枧水), salt and MSG, and is stirred by hand in one direction. Then the whole mass is lifted and thrown down into the crock a dozen or more times, until a stretched piece shrinks back by itself; that is what gives the balls their spring. The shaped balls go into water heated to 50 degrees, which is brought slowly to a bare simmer, and they are lifted out as soon as they float.
Flavour and texture
The bureau describes the balls as crisp, fresh-tasting and very springy, with an audible "gebeng gebeng" crunch when bitten. Freshly made, they are white, crisp, springy and free of gritty bits.
Where it comes from
Making the balls is said to go back more than 200 years, to the Qing dynasty. One local tradition places the technique's roots in Daxi village (大西村) in Chenghuang town (城隍镇), also in Xingye. Another story credits the fame of Shinan meatballs to Li Zongren (李宗仁): a merchant gave him a parcel of them when he was stationed in Xingye, and he served them to guests from then on.
By the 1970s the large restaurants in Shinan each had a meatball specialist. In the 1980s the dish reached Yulin city, when the newly opened Dongyuan Hotel (东园饭店) brought in a Shinan chef to make it. In 2017 the Shinan meatball technique was entered in the fourth batch of Yulin's municipal intangible cultural heritage list.
How it is eaten
Restaurants in Xingye serve the balls as meatball soup (肉蛋汤) or stir-fried (炒肉蛋). They are an everyday dish in Xingye homes and a standard one at festivals, weddings and funerals.
More dishes to compare
Explore related local specialties and compare their names, preparation notes and ordering guidance.
Yulin niuba beef 玉林牛巴 →
Another beef speciality of Yulin; the meatballs stand apart for their hand-pounded, thrown paste and springy, crunchy bite.
Questions before you order
Are Yulin Pounded Meatballs made from beef or pork?
Either: the traditional Shinan balls use yellow-cattle beef or pork, pounded to a paste and seasoned with alkaline water, salt and MSG.
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.