A white porcelain bowl holds a thick gray-brown soup with strips of wheat gluten, peanuts, black wood ear, day lily, shredded beef and kelp, dotted with pepper specks, and a white porcelain spoon standing in it.
The regional cooking of Henan in the Central Plains, aiming at a balance of the five flavours.
Hu la tang is a Henan breakfast soup: a beef or mutton broth thickened into a gravy with wheat gluten, starch noodles, peanuts, day lily, wood ear and kelp, hot mainly from pepper and finished with vinegar and sesame oil. The Xiaoyao hu la tang craft was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage item in the 5th batch, 2021, item no. 1522. No dated record was found: an account citing the Xihua county gazette places former imperial cook Zhao Qi in Xiaoyao in the Jiajing era of the Ming, while a 2021 report places him in the Song, so the accounts differ.
What
Hu la tang is a Henan breakfast soup. A beef or mutton broth is thickened into a gravy with flour or starch water and filled with washed wheat gluten, starch noodles, peanuts, day lily, wood ear and kelp. It is hot mainly from pepper and is finished with vinegar and sesame oil.1,2,3,6,7
When
No dated record was found. Folklore holds that Xiaoyao hu la tang has been handed down since the Song. Another account places former imperial cook Zhao Qi in Xiaoyao in the Jiajing era of the Ming, passing the recipe to the Gao and Wang families; the cited Xihua county gazette could not be checked. A 2021 report instead describes Zhao Qi as an imperial cook who fled south after the Jingkang incident in the Song. These Song and Ming origin stories differ and are not treated as fact. Pepper reached China in the Tang, so the soup is probably no older than that.1,3,4
Where
Henan. The Xiaoyao style of Xiaoyao town in Xihua County, Zhoukou, and the Beiwudu style of Wuyang County are frequently named; the soup is also found in Shaanxi.1,2,3,4
How
Beef or mutton bones and meat are simmered into a stock with pepper and other spices. Gluten, starch noodles, peanuts, day lily, wood ear and kelp go in, the pot is thickened into a gravy with flour water or settled starch water, and vinegar and sesame oil go in before serving. The recipes differ widely in stock simmering time: about 6 hours and 2.5 hours.6,7
Why
It is a breakfast, traditionally eaten in winter, with fried dough sticks or buns. Some diners mix it 1:1 with tofu pudding, a combination called liang chan.1,2,6,7
Impact and influence
Figures for hu la tang businesses in 2021 differ widely: about 16,000 related businesses nationwide, roughly 3/4 in Henan, versus 180,000 shops in another account. The Xiaoyao craft became a national heritage item in 2021. Branding and sales to the United States, Canada and Pakistan were documented in 2023.1,3,4,5
Legend has it that Zhao Qi, a cook at the Song court, combined a hangover soup from Shaolin Temple with a digestive tea from Mount Wudang into one soup, and after Kaifeng fell he fled south to Xiaoyao and sold it there. The national heritage record instead places the former imperial cook Zhao Qi in the Jiajing era of the Ming, so the tellings disagree about the period.
Told in: A local tale of Xiaoyao town in Xihua County, found in China Daily in 2021, in the national heritage record and in Chinese Wikipedia. The period differs from telling to telling, and no original old text was found.
Yan Song and the Secret Soup
Chinese Wikipedia reports a story that the Ming official Yan Song got the soup recipe from a Taoist and gave it to the Jiajing emperor, and that an imperial cook later carried it to Xiaoyao at the end of the Ming. Wikipedia itself classes these accounts as folklore, not history.
Told in: A Henan folk account retold by Chinese Wikipedia, with no original source found.
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
Making the stock and washing the gluten both take time. This is the simpler way I make it at home: a stock from beef bones and shank, gluten washed out of a flour dough, peanuts, day lily, wood ear, kelp and starch noodles in the pot, thickened with settled starch water, and finished with vinegar and sesame oil. The two reference recipes differ widely on the stock, one at about 6 hours and the other about 2 1/2, and I follow the shorter one at about 2 1/2 hours. The other amounts and timings are my own choices at home. Neither reference recipe names an individual author; each gives only the publisher's name.
Ingredients
Beef bones 800 g
Beef shank 300 g
Ginger slices 3 slices
Scallion sections 2 sections
Water 2000 ml, for the stock
Wheat flour 150 g, for washing into gluten
Water 75 ml, for the dough
Raw peanuts 30 g, soaked in water for 2 hours
Dried day lily 10 g, soaked until soft
Dried wood ear 5 g, soaked and shredded
Dried kelp 10 g, soaked and cut into strips
Dried sweet-potato noodles 40 g, softened in warm water
White pepper 2 teaspoons
Black pepper 1 teaspoon
Thirteen-spice blend 1 teaspoon
Light soy sauce 15 ml
Salt about 6 g, adjusted after tasting
Rice vinegar 30 ml, added just before serving
Sesame oil 5 ml, added just before serving
Steps
Knead the flour and 75 ml of water into a smooth dough and cover it for 30 minutes. Meanwhile soak the peanuts, day lily, wood ear, kelp and noodles separately until soft.
Put the dough in a basin of cold water and squeeze and knead it repeatedly to wash out the starch, until what is left in your hands is a stretchy ball of gluten. Keep all the cloudy water in one large bowl and let it settle. Leave the gluten in cold water until needed.
Blanch the bones and shank in boiling water for about 3 minutes, then rinse. Put them in a pot with 2000 ml of cold water, the ginger and the scallion, bring to a boil and skim. Turn to low heat and simmer about 2 1/2 hours, until the shank is tender and has no pink when cut.
Lift out the shank and shred it. Strain the stock and measure out about 1 liter, topping up with hot water if short.
Bring the stock to a boil, add the soaked peanuts and simmer about 20 minutes until they soften. Add the day lily, wood ear and kelp and cook about 8 minutes, then add the noodles and shredded beef.
Tear the gluten into thin strips, stretch them thin and add them to the pot. Add the white pepper, black pepper, thirteen-spice blend, soy sauce and salt.
Pour off the clear water on top of the settled starch water, stir the thick part together and pour it into the pot in a thin stream while stirring, until the soup thickens like a gravy. Cook about 2 more minutes so the starch cooks through. Off the heat, stir in the vinegar and sesame oil and serve hot, with fried dough sticks or buns if you like.
Tips
The heat comes mainly from pepper, so I add half to begin with, taste, and add more a little at a time.
If it is too hot for you, mix it half and half with tofu pudding, as people in Henan do; the combination is called liang chan.
