Made with pork belly, potatoes, cellophane noodles, and Chinese cabbage (or napa cabbage), this dish is stewed to perfection. If you've tried the hearty mixed stew from Northeast China and thought it was "pretty good," then you’ve been lucky enough to taste one of the finer examples of stewed dishes. But if you’ve tried the pork belly stewed with vegetables from Fugu, you’ll truly understand what a top-tier stew is all about. Locally, this…
The buckwheat is husked to become buckwheat groats. The groats are soaked in water to soften them the day before, then kneaded into a paste. After fine straining, the paste is scooped into bowls and steamed. Stir once with chopsticks midway through steaming. Once cooked, it is ready. Let it cool in a cool place, then pour over a dipping sauce made with vinegar, ginger, sesame, chili, mashed garlic, and sesame oil before eating. …
The entire set of donkey large intestines is repeatedly rinsed clean, boiled in water until half-cooked, then removed and stewed with sauce, chili, Sichuan peppercorns, scallions, ginger, salt, and other seasonings. It is characterized by its numbing, spicy, salty, tender, and deliciously fragrant taste, making it a unique delicacy in northern Shaanxi cuisine. …
Qileng Red Dates are a specialty of Qileng Township, Fugu County, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province. Known for their thin skin, thick flesh, balanced sweetness and acidity, and rich oil content, Qileng Red Dates were once the most beloved fresh fruit among locals and have also gained a strong reputation in the border region of Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia. The Qileng Facility Agriculture Demonstration Park is located on the western bank of the Yellow River, south of Fugu County, and is an area where red dates...
Stewed Donkey Intestines in Braised Sauce from Fugu are made by repeatedly rinsing a whole set of donkey large intestines until thoroughly clean, then boiling them halfway in water. After removing, they are braised with soy sauce, chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, scallions, ginger, salt, and other seasonings. The dish is known for its numbing, spicy, salty, tender, and deliciously aromatic flavors, making it a unique delicacy in northern Shaanxi cuisine. …
The lamb from northern Shaanxi is flavorful with minimal gaminess. This dish uses castrated lamb, slow-cooked with over ten spices including Chinese prickly ash, thyme, dried chili peppers, and fennel. The finished dish features a clear broth and tender meat, offering excellent nourishing benefits.…
Stuffed Potatoes with Bitter Greens from Fugu are made with wild bitter greens and locally grown potatoes from northern Shaanxi. The dish has a spicy, savory, and salty flavor that can rival KFC’s “Creamy Mashed Potatoes with Gravy.”…
Fugu Roast Lamb Leg Fugu Roast Lamb Leg is made by roasting locally sourced castrated lamb legs from northern Shaanxi. The finished dish is crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, spicy and savory with a strong cumin flavor. …
Fugu Millet Jelly: The millet is rinsed clean, soaked in cold water for ten to twenty minutes, then drained and ground into a millet slurry with water. The slurry is cooked in a pot while stirring continuously. When nearly done, wormwood seed powder is added. The cooked millet slurry is spread into thin pancakes on sorghum mats, left to cool, and another layer is added. This process of spreading and cooling is repeated until the jelly is formed. When ready to serve, it is sliced into fine strips and seasoned with sesame, mustard, …
Fugu bauxite is primarily distributed in the area from Tianqiaozhe in Haize Temple Township to Wenjiamao in Qingshui Township, covering a deposit area of about 80 square kilometers with a total reserve of 640 million cubic meters, making it the largest discovered bauxite deposit in Shaanxi Province. In 1985, Northwest Nonferrous Geological Exploration Company conducted surveys over an area of 1.5 square kilometers and identified industrial reserves...
Fugu kaolin is primarily distributed in the areas of Fugu Town, Haizemiao, and Huangfu. It occurs alongside coalfields, growing together with Carboniferous–Permian coal seams like twin brothers. The proven reserves amount to 359 million tons, with prospective reserves exceeding 1 billion tons, ranking first in China. The Carboniferous–Permian strata host six layers of kaolin…
Fugu limestone is mainly distributed along the river from Langwan to Tianqiao Hydropower Station, covering an area of 75 square kilometers with a total reserve of over 500 million tons. The limestone ore body is found in the Upper Majiagou Formation of the Ordovician system, with dozens of meters exposed at the surface, stretching approximately 7 kilometers in length. It is divided into upper and lower layers: the upper layer is 15–18 meters thick, and the lower layer is 2–4 meters thick, …
Fugu refractory clay is distributed in the areas of Haizemiao and Fugu Town. Preliminary surveys indicate reserves of 5.35 million tons. Testing by the Building Research Institute of the State Economic and Trade Commission shows that the raw material contains 43% alumina (ALO) and has a refractoriness of over 1,790°C. The clay is of high quality, has a wide range of uses, and most of it is exposed at the surface, allowing for open-pit mining.
Stir-fried Yam with Alfalfa — Alfalfa is originally a type of forage grass. In spring, the tender sprouts freshly emerged from the ground have a unique and pleasant flavor when eaten. During times of famine, mature alfalfa could also serve as food to stave off hunger. The tender alfalfa shoots are pinched off, cleared of any debris, washed free of dust, then boiled, cooled in water, squeezed dry, and chopped. It’s important to plunge the boiled alfalfa into cold water to cool it down — it must not be left to cool naturally, or it will turn yellow and lose its palatability. The yam (or potato) is washed with its skin on, then steamed or boiled until cooked, peeled, and grated into shreds using a grater. In a pan, heat an appropriate amount of oil and sauté with seasonings until fragrant. Add the chopped alfalfa and grated yam, stir well while frying until evenly heated, and it’s ready to eat. In the past, during times of hardship, poorer families who had no yams could still survive by eating just the alfalfa — even without oil.
Stir-fried yam strips are actually stir-fried potato strips, serving as a change from eating stewed dishes every day. Peel the potatoes and cut them into strips about half a centimeter thick. Their shape resembles the old wooden wheel cart’s wooden keys, hence the name “键键” (meaning “keys”). Wash them and stir-fry in a wok with pre-seasoned and fragrant oil, stirring constantly with a spatula. Then add a little water, cover the wok, and let it cook until the water evaporates and the dish is done...
Braised Eggplant "Lamb braised with eggplant — so fragrant it could knock out even a fool." Without lamb, braised eggplant with potatoes still tastes great. In my hometown of Hazhen, long eggplants are commonly grown. People avoid cutting the eggplants with a knife, believing it taints them with the "iron stench," so they tear them by hand into strips and stir-fry them together with potatoes until tender. Braised eggplant is often cooked with sheep fat. In the county town, round eggplants are more common. When making this dish, people cut the eggplants into chunks and stir-fry them with potatoes before braising, using either sheep fat or lard.
Stewed Pumpkin Before the 1960s, the variety of vegetables grown in Fugu was quite limited. After spring spinach and spring cabbage came pumpkin and eggplant. The irrigated fields around the county town were planted with pumpkins everywhere—some weighing over ten pounds, others as small as six or seven pounds. On the window sills and back areas of the auditorium at Fuzhong Middle School where I studied, many pumpkins were stacked…
Stewed mixed vegetables are the most common everyday side dish for lunch among the people of Fugu, enjoyed across the entire county. However, flavors vary, especially when it comes to winter-stored vegetables. In the eastern part, pickled salted cabbage is more common. Raw cabbages are cut in half lengthwise, salted layer by layer, then pressed in large earthenware jars weighted down with stone slabs. It takes two to three days for the moisture in the cabbage to be pressed out. The cabbage is then wrung dry and repacked layer by layer in the jar, again weighted down…
Dried melon strips are made by scraping the red flesh off a watermelon rind, trimming away the green skin, then slicing the remaining white part into long strips with a small knife. These strips are sun-dried in the strong sunlight to become dried melon strips. To prepare them, first soak the strips in warm water to soften, then cut them into sections. They can be braised, stir-fried, or seasoned — the choice of cooking method depends on your preference. …
Dried red beans refer to tender red bean pods that have been sun-dried, usually dried in summer for consumption in winter. In the past, without greenhouses, fresh vegetables in winter were limited to dried or pickled options. In summer, the veins of the red bean pods are removed and the pods are cut lengthwise in half, then thoroughly sun-dried under the strong sun and stored in a cool, dry place. When ready to eat, the dried red beans are first soaked in hot water to soften them, then they can be stewed or stir-fried with other ingredients...