Northwestern Cuisine

Introduction

The regional cooking of Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai, with wheat foods and mutton at its core.

Northwestern cuisine is the regional cooking of Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai, with wheat foods and mutton at its core. In Ningxia noodles are often served with chili oil and mutton is eaten dipped in vinegar, and the minced-meat noodles of Qishan in Shaanxi are rolled wheat noodles in a thin sour and hot broth with five-colour vegetables, finished with Qishan vinegar. The Shi Ming by Liu Xi of the Eastern Han has an entry for hu bing in its section on food, explaining the name either by the large, spread shape of the bread or by the sesame placed on top. Xi'an is known as the city of paomo, and bread-in-broth made with beef or mutton is halal food. Hand-held mutton is another well-known local eat. The food of Xinjiang is classed as Xinjiang cuisine, and the traditional food of the Tibetan communities of Qinghai and Gansu as Tibetan cuisine.