Xinjiang Cuisine

Introduction

The regional cooking of Xinjiang, with naan, pilaf, mutton and wheat foods.

Xinjiang cuisine is the regional cooking of Xinjiang, and each of its peoples has its own traditional foods: naan, pilaf and hand-pulled noodles among the Uyghur, boiled mutton, naren noodles and dairy among the Kazakh, and, by tradition, wheat foods and leavened flatbread at nearly every meal among the Xibe of Xinjiang. Lamb skewers have spread across the country. Naan is baked in pits whose walls are daubed with yellow clay, and comes in about fifty varieties. Dumplings found in the Tang tombs at Astana near Turpan show that dumplings had reached Xinjiang from the Central Plains along the Silk Road by the Tang. Xinjiang cuisine means the food of the region as a whole, while cooking defined by Islamic dietary rules is covered under halal cuisine.