Inner Mongolia Stuffed Intestines

Inner Mongolia Stuffed Intestines

　　Inner Mongolia Stuffed Intestines

　　1.

　　Stuffing Small Intestines

　　The process of stuffing intestines is generally carried out on the freshly skinned sheep hide. Because the sheepskin is smooth, the intestines are less likely to break. Most of the time, two people are needed to cooperate. The small intestine connects to the cecum (commonly known as the bitter gut), which in turn connects to the thin fat intestine. The thin fat intestine is cut off, and water is poured in through the incision. The larger-capacity cecum becomes a natural large funnel. Once filled, one person continuously squeezes with force, and the water flows into the small intestine. Another person uses both hands to repeatedly rub the small intestine, expelling the feces into a slop bucket. This process of filling and draining is repeated until the small intestine is basically clean. Then, a piece of lung is cut and stuffed into the small intestine, water is poured in and squeezed out again, and the intestine is rinsed once or twice before it is ready for stuffing.

　　The sheep blood scooped from the sheep’s cavity into a basin is usually just enough to fill its own intestines. When stuffing, first crumble the coagulated blood clots by hand, stir in buckwheat flour or wheat flour, and add chopped omentum fat, salt, seasonings, scallions, garlic, and other ingredients. It is also poured in through the incision—don’t fill it too full or make it too flat. The small intestine is two or three zhang (approximately 6.6–9.9 meters) long. For ease of cooking, it can be divided into four or five sections, without tearing off the outer fat connected to the intestinal wall. This fat helps secure the intestinal sections, so care should be taken to arrange them neatly to prevent tangling. When cooked, they curl into a ball, just like their natural state in the abdomen. During the lambing season, there are often too many intestines to eat at once, so they are stuffed, divided into four or five portions, and frozen to be cooked the following year around the Qingming Festival.

　　2. Stuffing Fat Intestine

　　Cut apart the connection between the thin fat intestine and the fat intestine, keeping the fat intestine. Water is injected from one end, and after rinsing, the diaphragm meat, flower tripe, and thin fat intestine are all cut into strips of the same length as the fat intestine. Salt, seasonings, scallions, and other ingredients are added, then stuffed into the fat intestine from the narrow end while turning it inside out. By the time it’s all stuffed, the fat intestine has been turned inside out (with the inside facing outward—this is different from the small intestine), and it can be cooked immediately or saved for spring.

　　3. Stuffing Small Tripe

　　The part between the folds and the small intestine is commonly called water tripe (stomach). To distinguish it from the large stomach (rumen) that connects to the red intestine, it is called small tripe. Keep a bit more of the small intestine (about three feet) on the small tripe, cut it apart from where it connects to the folds, pour out the feces, rinse it several times, and turn it inside out. The bloody mixture used for stuffing the small intestine is poured in through the cut, filling it nearly to capacity. A chopstick is inserted to tie off the incision. While turning it inside out, only the small intestine near the small tripe peeks out, and the rest is pulled out from the blood-pouring opening. A figure-eight knot is tied around the chopstick, and it can either be cooked right away or made into frozen tripe. The cooked small tripe shrinks in size. Since it has been turned inside out, it has folds and looks rather like a turtle carrying a load on its back.