LOCAL FOOD GUIDE

Spiced Pressed Mutton 垛子羊肉

Duozi Yangrou

Spiced Pressed Mutton is featured among the local specialties of Henan.

AI illustration: An oval white plate of thin layered cooked brown-red meat slices.
AI illustration · AI 示意图（仅供参考，非实拍）AI-generated visual reference; not a restaurant photograph. AI 示意图，仅供参考，非实拍。

Spiced Pressed Mutton (垛子羊肉) is associated with Ningling (宁陵) and the wider Shangqiu (商丘) food tradition. A 2008 account from the Henan Taiwan Affairs Office (河南省人民政府台湾事务办公室) describes the Guan family's preparation and its local recognition.

Pressing the meat

The account identifies Guan Jingde (关敬德) as a maker who opened a halal restaurant in Ningling in 1989, principally selling duozi mutton. He improved the pressing process by replacing a wooden lever with a jack, producing a more firmly compressed block of meat.

Local recognition and serving

The Guan family product entered the Shangqiu regional gazetteer in 1991 and received recognition as a traditional Shangqiu snack in 2000. A 2020 CCTV (央视网) programme identifies eating the mutton with shaobing (烧饼) as the traditional local pairing.

China Revealed · Editorially updated 2026-09-30

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.