Mutton with Hand-Rolled Noodles 羊肉搓面

Mutton with Hand-Rolled Noodles (羊肉搓面) is a traditional noodle dish of Yinchuan (银川), Ningxia, which the Yinchuan Evening News calls the city's signature traditional noodle. Thick noodles rubbed out by hand are served with a topping of diced mutton in a broth made from mutton bones. The dish also goes by 'lao cuomian' (老搓面, old rubbed noodles); the newspaper's writer reads 'old' as the locals' mark of respect for a craft handed down.

How it is made

The Yinchuan Evening News singles out the rubbing ('cuo', 搓) of the noodles as the dish's defining feature. High-gluten flour from the Yinchuan Plain is kneaded into a dough and left to rest, then rubbed by hand into noodles about as thick as chopsticks and boiled.

The topping, or 'saozi' (臊子), uses mutton from wethers (羯羊). The meat is diced and fried until cooked, then simmered with an old broth made slowly over low heat from mutton bones and marrow. Fresh coriander, 'meidou' beans (梅豆) and tofu go in, and a little red chilli oil finishes the bowl.

How it is eaten

The noodles come with the topping and a small dish of pickled vegetables. The Fujian Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in a feature on Ningxia mutton, calls it the most homely of dishes, eaten noodles and broth together until a fine sweat breaks out on the forehead.

The Yinchuan Evening News lists it among the city's most representative noodles, alongside saozi noodles, noodles with wild Helan Mountain (贺兰山) mushrooms, pinched noodles with lamb ribs and 'shengcuan' noodles. The same newspaper notes that many Yinchuan people eat rice at midday and noodles in the evening.