Lamb Spine Hotpot (Yang Xiezi)
Sections of lamb spine braised in a spiced soy broth and brought to the table in a hotpot to gnaw on, with vegetables and potato noodles added to the broth afterwards.
How to eat it
This is eaten with your hands. Put on the plastic gloves provided, pick up a section of spine and work the meat out from between the vertebrae with your teeth; the marrow is sucked from the bone and is considered the best part. Only add the vegetables and noodles once most of the meat is gone, otherwise the broth boils down before they cook.
The story behind the dish
The name means "lamb scorpion", after the shape of a spine section seen from above. It began as a cheap cut sold in the Hui Muslim neighbourhoods of the city and became a winter craze in Beijing in the 1990s, when the idea of braising the bones first and then using the pot for a communal hotpot spread from a handful of shops to every district. It is now as much a Beijing winter ritual as copper-pot mutton.
For reference
Every kitchen does it its own way. What follows is the typical version — ingredients, heat and price shift from city to city and from one restaurant to the next, so take it as a guide rather than a fixed recipe.