Braised and Sauced Cooked Meats · FFET10083
Sauced and Roasted Beef and Mutton Craft
The sauced and roasted beef and mutton craft is in the second national heritage batch, and its page says its transmission faces a serious crisis.
A pot of dark old stock simmers while a hand lifts a whole braised chicken out of it on a hook, sliced sauced beef fans out on the board, and a salted duck lies on a wooden platter beside it.
Meat and poultry simmered in a seasoned sauce or brine stock until the flavour is in, ready to eat as they are.
On the China Intangible Cultural Heritage website, the item "Beef and Mutton Cooking Techniques (Yueshengzhai Sauced and Roasted Beef and Mutton Techniques)" is a traditional craft listed as a new item, added to the second batch of the national representative list in 2008; the declarant is Beijing Yueshengzhai Halal Food Co., Ltd. The item page says the shop was "founded in the thirtieth year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing (1765)" and "was for a time famous for its sauced mutton and roast mutton", that its work involves, besides choice of meat and a recipe, a technique of adding aged broth, and that handing the craft on "has fallen into a serious crisis and urgently needs protection".