Hand-Held Boiled Lamb 手抓羊肉
Hand-Held Boiled Lamb is featured among the local specialties of Heilongjiang.
Hand-Held Boiled Lamb (手抓羊肉) is large pieces of bone-in lamb boiled in plain water and eaten with the fingers. It belongs to a grassland method also called shouzhuarou (手抓肉) or shoubarou (手把肉), in Mongolian Chanasan makh (Чанасан Мах).
How it is made
Fresh lamb is the usual meat, though beef or horse meat is sometimes used. The cooks choose fatty, bone-in cuts such as the leg or the ribs and boil them in water with onion until they are only just cooked. Seasoning in the pot is minimal: Chinese Wikipedia describes the water as unseasoned in one place and as taking only a little salt in another, with ginger and spring onion sometimes added to take away the gamey smell. The meat is then lifted out and cut into small pieces.
Flavour and texture
Cooked to the point of just done, the lamb is meant to stay tender rather than stringy, without a strong mutton smell. Seasoning is kept simple to bring out the meat's own flavour.
How it is eaten
No chopsticks are used, which is where the name comes from: the pieces are taken in the hand and dipped in garlic paste with vinegar, in pepper salt, or in salt, garlic paste and chilli powder. It is often eaten with milk tea or naan flatbread, and besides being everyday food it is served at festivals and when guests are received, as a sign of hospitality.
The method is recorded among the nomadic peoples of the Mongolian, Inner Mongolian and north-east Chinese grasslands and of the Junggar Basin (准噶尔盆地), including the Evenki (鄂温克族), Daur (达斡尔族) and Oroqen (鄂伦春族) as well as the Mongols, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.