Inner Mongolia

Shǒu bǎ ròu

Bone-in mutton is separated at the joints and boiled in plain water with no salt and no spices, so nothing masks the meat. It comes to the table in large pieces on a communal platter and you eat it with your hands and a small knife, scraping meat off the bone, dipping each piece in a sauce of chive flower paste, fermented red beancurd, sesame paste or just salt. The name means exactly what it describes.

Tastes like: Clean, mild, intensely sheepy and quite fatty, with the seasoning coming entirely from the dip you choose.

Not on the menu but in it: The dipping sauce is where the allergens are: chive-flower paste and fermented red beancurd are both soy-and-salt ferments, and sesame paste is a standard component. The meat itself is unseasoned, which visitors often read as the kitchen having forgotten the salt.

Měng gǔ nǎi chá

A brick of compressed dark tea is broken up and boiled hard in water, then fresh cow's milk is poured in slowly and the whole thing is salted. It is served from a copper kettle into bowls, sometimes with butter or mutton fat stirred in, and drunk all day long with fried dough twists, stir-fried millet, dried beef and pieces of milk curd dropped straight into the bowl to soften. It functions as food rather than as a drink.

Tastes like: Savoury, salty and tannic with a milky body - closer to a thin broth than to anything a visitor would call tea.

Not on the menu but in it: It is salted, not sweetened - this is the single most consistent surprise for foreign visitors in Inner Mongolia, and if nobody warns you the first mouthful is genuinely unpleasant. Butter or rendered mutton fat is often added, so it is not a light drink, and brick tea is strongly caffeinated.

Yáng ròu shāo mài

Open-topped steamed dumplings with a translucent, almost paper-thin wrapper gathered into a frilled collar, packed with minced lamb and spring onion. Hohhot's version is unusually juicy and heavily filled, and is sold by the weight of the dough rather than by the piece - one liang (一两) is eight dumplings. They are dipped in dark vinegar and chased with strong brick tea to cut the fat.

Tastes like: Rich, peppery and very juicy, with the lamb fat released into the wrapper; the vinegar is essential, not a garnish.

Not on the menu but in it: Ordering is by weight of wrapper dough, so '一两' means eight dumplings, not a small portion - two liang defeats most people. Sand onion (沙葱) or ginger is often in the filling, and the vinegar is a soy-free grain vinegar but the dipping soy is not.

Kǎo quán yáng

A whole young wether is seasoned inside the cavity with spring onion, ginger, pepper and salt, brushed with a sugar-and-sesame-oil glaze, air-dried and then roasted whole until the skin lacquers to a crackling. It is wheeled out intact and opened at the table with a short ceremony, sometimes with a blessing and a cut of the first slice offered to the senior guest. Ordered ahead and eaten by a group.

Tastes like: Shatteringly crisp glazed skin over mild, fatty meat; richer and sweeter on the outside than boiled mutton.

Not on the menu but in it: The glaze contains sugar and sesame oil, so the skin is sweet. Dipping sauces served alongside typically contain soy and sesame paste.

Nǎi dòu fu

Fermented milk is strained through cloth, then cooked slowly while being stirred until it thickens, pressed in a bag to drive out the whey and set in a wooden mould to dry. Despite the name there is no soy in it at all - it is a firm fresh cheese. Mongolian households eat it as a snack, carry it as trail food, or drop cubes into hot milk tea to soften.

Tastes like: Firm, slightly rubbery and squeaky, ranging from faintly sour to faintly sweet depending on the maker; mild but unmistakably dairy.

Not on the menu but in it: Nothing hidden, but the name is actively misleading: 'milk tofu' is cheese, and anyone avoiding dairy who orders it expecting bean curd will be caught out. Drier aged versions are extremely hard and are meant to be softened in tea, not bitten.

Nǎi pí zi

Fresh whole milk is simmered very gently until a thick skin forms on the surface, which is lifted off whole and hung to dry into a pale, wrinkled disc. It is the richest of the Mongolian dairy foods, essentially concentrated clotted cream, and is eaten in small pieces with sugar, rolled with sugar inside a piece of flatbread, or melted into milk tea.

Tastes like: Very rich, buttery and faintly sweet, somewhere between clotted cream and a dry cheese rind.

Not on the menu but in it: Extremely high in milk fat - a small piece is a large amount of cream. Sometimes sold with added sugar.

Chǎo mǐ

Broomcorn millet is steamed, dry-roasted and hulled into hard golden grains, known in Mongolian as a food that keeps almost indefinitely. It is not eaten alone: you stir it into salted milk tea, where it softens, or mix it with yoghurt and sugar as a cold dish, or eat it dry with butter as travel food.

Tastes like: Nutty and toasty, crunchy when dry and chewy once soaked; very lightly flavoured by itself.

Not on the menu but in it: Often pre-fried in butter or beef tallow before being added to tea, which makes a seemingly plain grain non-vegetarian in some kitchens - worth asking.

Yáng zá suì

Sheep head, trotters and the full set of organs - heart, liver, lung, intestine, tripe - are cleaned, cooked and shredded, then served in a heavily seasoned broth finished with a slick of chilli oil. Hohhot shops offer it either as tripe only (纯肚) or as the full mixture (全杂). It is a breakfast dish, eaten with a torn-up beizi flatbread dunked into the bowl.

Tastes like: Salty, peppery and deeply savoury with a strong organ-meat edge; the red chilli oil on top is what locals judge a bowl by.

Not on the menu but in it: Lung and intestine are standard components, not optional extras, and the broth is made from the offal itself. Ordering 纯肚 gets you tripe only if organs are a problem.

Bèi zi

Hohhot's everyday bread: a thick wheat flour bread baked against the wall of a drum oven, made round, square, triangular or rectangular depending on the filling, and sold plain (白焙子), salty with pepper and oil, or sweet with sugar or red bean. The savoury ones are split and stuffed with lamb offal, sausage or egg to make a breakfast sandwich, or torn and dropped into soup.

Tastes like: Chewy and substantial with a crisp blistered crust; plain versions are deliberately bland so they can carry something else.

Not on the menu but in it: Savoury versions are often laminated with rendered animal fat or mutton oil rather than vegetable oil, so a plain-looking bread may not be vegetarian. Some are brushed with sesame.

Yóu miàn wō wō

Naked oat flour is scalded with boiling water, then each piece is smeared thin against a stone slab with the heel of the hand and curled into a small tube. The tubes are stood upright in a steamer in a honeycomb pattern and steamed, then eaten dipped in a hot mutton-and-tomato gravy or a cold sour sauce. Oats grow where little else will in Inner Mongolia, which is why this is a regional staple rather than a novelty.

Tastes like: Nutty, slightly bitter oat flavour with a firm, springy chew; the gravy supplies all the salt.

Not on the menu but in it: The dipping gravy is almost always mutton-based, so the dish as served is not vegetarian even though the noodles are. Oats here are not gluten-free as handled, since kitchens work with wheat flour alongside.

Xuè cháng

Sheep's blood is mixed with chopped tenderloin, mutton fat, onion, ginger, pepper and salted water, then piped into cleaned sheep intestine, tied off and poached. It is sliced and served warm, sometimes pan-fried or re-steamed, and usually appears on the same platter as boiled mutton. A direct product of using every part of the animal.

Tastes like: Soft, mineral and iron-rich with a mild onion sweetness; fattier and looser than a European black pudding.

Not on the menu but in it: The casing is real intestine and the main ingredient is blood - menus rarely make either explicit in English. Contains no cereal filler, unlike British black pudding.

Bīng zhǔ yáng

A modern Inner Mongolian hotpot style: a copper or iron pot is filled with ice cubes rather than water, raw lamb is laid on top, and the pot is heated so the lamb cooks as the ice melts into its own broth. Goji berries, onion and sometimes yoghurt go in, and the resulting broth is drunk at the end. The claim is that starting from ice keeps the meat tender and reduces the muttony smell.

Tastes like: Clean and sweet rather than gamey, with a light broth that tastes of lamb and onion and nothing else.

Not on the menu but in it: Yoghurt is sometimes added to the pot, which surprises people. Dipping sauces are sesame-and-soy based by default.

Fēng gān niú ròu

Beef is frozen, hung in a ventilated shed for four to five months to dry out, then marinated and finished in an oven. The result is a hard, fibrous strip you tear rather than bite cleanly. Historically a cavalry ration, now the standard thing visitors take home from Hohhot, and also eaten crumbled into milk tea.

Tastes like: Concentrated, salty and beefy with a tough, stringy chew; the cumin-spiced versions are the most common.

Not on the menu but in it: Marinades usually contain soy and sometimes wheat-based seasoning, and spiced versions can be surprisingly chilli-heavy. Vacuum packs sold as souvenirs vary enormously in quality.

Yóu zhá gāo

Glutinous yellow millet flour is steamed, kneaded while hot, wrapped around a filling of sweet bean paste, sugar or sometimes savoury vegetable and meat, then deep-fried until blistered. Eaten hot, when the outside is crisp and the dough inside is stretchy. Associated with birthdays and festivals as a luck food, but sold year-round.

Tastes like: Crisp shell, very chewy sweet interior; the millet gives a faint sourness under the sugar.

Not on the menu but in it: Fried in large quantities of oil and sometimes animal fat. Savoury versions exist and look identical to sweet ones, so check which you are buying.