Fish Tucked Inside Mutton 羊方藏鱼
Fish Tucked Inside Mutton is featured among the local specialties of Jiangsu.
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Fish Tucked Inside Mutton (羊方藏鱼) is a Xuzhou (徐州) dish in which a fish is placed inside a large piece of mutton that has been cut open, and the two are stewed together over a low flame. The name describes exactly that: a square of mutton with a fish hidden in it.
Where it comes from
Chinese Wikipedia lists the dish among the foods of Xuzhou and files it under Xuhai cuisine (徐海菜), as both a mutton dish and a Chinese fish dish.
The story told about it involves Peng Zu (彭祖). His youngest son, Xiding (夕丁), loved to fish, but Peng Zu forbade it for fear the boy would drown. One day Xiding came home with a catch while his father was out, and had his mother cut open the mutton that was stewing and hide the fish inside. When Peng Zu came home and ate the mutton, he found it unusually delicious and began cooking it the same way on purpose, and so the dish was born. It is also said that the Chinese character xian (鲜), "fresh-tasting", was created from this story.
