| By: Tianyi Xu|
Lamb Pao-mo is a very common dish that you can find almost everywhere in Shaanxi Province in Northwestern China. Though my family is not from its place of origin, it has always been one of my favorite dishes. This dish can be easily home-cooked or found in small local restaurants and stalls for a cheap price. Basically, it is a hot stew that includes small pieces of steamed pita bread or buns (known as mo, 馍, in Chinese) broken up by hand and served with lamb broth and lamb meat. Lamb Pao-mo is famous for its delicious taste, freshness and texture of the bread – so definitely try this recipe if you have sufficient time and ingredients!
Ingredients
Yield: 4-5 servings
Prep & Cooking time: 2-3 hours
For soup:
Lamb bones 2 lb
Chinese fermented rice wine 1 spoon
Scallion
Ginger
Star anise
Black pepper
Sichuan peppercorn
Salt
Garlic
Chinese five spice powder
Chinese bok choy 3 – 4 stems
Rice vermicelli 1/2 – 1 lb
For mo:
Leavened Dough
All purpose flour 1/2 cup
RT water 30 mL
Yeast 1/2 teaspoon
Baking soda 1/2 teaspoon
Unleavened Dough
All purpose flour 4 1/2 cups
Boiled water 270 mL
For your own preferences:
Cilantro
Soy Sauce
Vinegar
Sugar
Lao Gan Ma 老干妈
Cooking Instructions
Prepare all the ingredients above.
Cut up and wash the lamb bones, scallion, ginger, bok choy and other seasoning ingredients as needed.
Place the lamb bones in a steaming pot, add enough water to cover the lamb, and add a spoon of fermented rice wine, then bring to a boil.
Constantly skim off any impurities on the surface and add more water into the pot.
Add scallion, ginger, star anise, black pepper, Sichuan peppercorn, garlic, Chinese five spice powder and other spices as you like. Keep boiling for 1.5 – 2.5 hrs until the meat is nearly falling off the bone.
Meanwhile, add 1/2 cup of flour, 30 mL RT water, 1/2 teaspoon of yeast and baking soda into a bowl.
Mix all the ingredients in the bowl and knead the leavened dough. If the paste is too sticky, add some flour on the surface.
Add 270 mL boiled water to 4 1/2 cups of flour and use chopsticks to stir the paste. After it cools down, use your hand to knead the unleavened dough.
After both doughs are smooth and ready, cover them with plastic wrap and wait for 40 min. The smaller dough will become leavened.
Mix the two doughs together and continue kneading it into an elongated shape. Cut the dough into ~8 pieces of equal size.
Roll each of the smaller pieces into a spindle shape with two narrow ends.
Use a rolling pin to make the spindles flat.
Start from one end, roll each of the flat doughs into a spiral form and press them vertically to form the shape of mo.
Heat the mo on a pan and wait for them to turn brownish. Mo is ready!
Add bok choy into the pot and bring to a boil.
Taste the soup and adjust the amounts of salt, sugar and pepper as you like.
Add rice vermicelli into the broth and turn off the stove after 1 min. Soup is ready!
Break up the mo into small pieces, soybean-sized, and add them into the soup. Add cilantro, soy sauce, vinegar or Lao Gan Ma as you like. Enjoy!
Notes
If you prefer beef to lamb, you can also use beef bones as a substitute and make Beef Pao-mo.
You can add your preferred amount or types of spices into the soup at the beginning.
Almost all kinds of vegetables can be substitutes; wood ear mushroom is also perfect for this dish.
All the ingredients can be found in Asian markets.
Make sure to follow the ratio of water and flour when making the doughs. Remember that the dough with boiled water is unleavened and the other one is leavened.
This is a relatively simple recipe or a pandemic version of the dish, so there may be deviations from an authentic and traditional recipe.
Be patient! It is definitely not an easy dish for beginner cooks to make from scratch.
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