Do you think you're an Old China Hand? Do you self-identify as a Beijingren, and pride yourself on adding "arr"s to all the right words? Do you hear the name of the dish baodu and cleverly determine that because "bao" means to quick-fry in hot oil, and "du" means tripe, that this old school Beijing dish is tripe cooked in hot oil?

Ha! Clever though you may be, baodu is actually cooked in boiling water. Du does means tripe, though, and yes, that's the edible stomach lining of lamb and cattle, often resembling a rubbery sea urchin that's been run over by a flatbed truck.

"The raw ingredients are put into the pot, and are quick-cooked with a big fire, which is called bao," explained Feng Guoming, the third-generation tripe master of Jinshenglong Baodu Feng, a well-known old Beijing baodu restaurant brand with a history of more than 100 years. Lamb tripe and ox tripe can all be used to cook baodu, but most people prefer baodu made of lamb tripe because, as you might guess, it's more tender.

Related

• Old Beijing snack restaurant reopened
• A taste of old Beijing
• A taste of the vanishing old Beijing
• Tasting old Beijing in temple fairs
• Qianmen revives dreams of old Beijing
• Folk art of old Beijing on show
• Get a taste of old Beijing

Comments