Camel Meat Pie 骆驼肉馅饼

Camel Meat Pie (骆驼肉馅饼) is a pie of hand-kneaded dough filled with chopped camel meat and baked on a griddle, a traditional wheaten food of Alxa League (阿拉善盟) in Inner Mongolia. It is Alxa's own take on the Mongolian meat pie (蒙古馅饼), made with meat from the camels the region is known for.

How it is made

The Inner Mongolia intangible-heritage platform, run by the region's Institute of Culture and Tourism Development, describes a filling of locally herded camel meat, chosen with fat and lean together and chopped fine, then seasoned with sand onion (沙葱) and ordinary onion. The chewy, hand-kneaded dough is rolled out, filled and baked on a griddle. Making it calls for careful control of the heat, and the pie stays on until the crust turns golden and crisp.

Flavour and texture

Under the crisp crust the filling stays tender and juicy, and the rich flavour of camel meat mixes with the fresh scent of sand onion. The Inner Mongolia government's round-up of Alxa food describes a thin, almost translucent wrapper that is golden and glossy, a pie that is neither gamey nor greasy, and dough with a fragrant bite.

Where it comes from

Alxa is called China's 'home of the camel' (中国骆驼之乡), and the same government feature describes the meat of Alxa Bactrian camels as low in fat and high in protein. The Mongolian meat pie is one of the main wheaten foods of Mongols across Inner Mongolia; in Alxa the camel-meat version became the local speciality, and the feature calls it the taste Alxa people miss most when they are away from home.