Mutton / lamb (bone-in belly)

Bone-in lamb or mutton brisket (belly) cut into chunks, skin on in the Cantonese style. Blanched to tame its gaminess and simmered with ginger, dried tangerine peel and water chestnut, it makes the richest, most warming of the winter meat soups. The classic dong gwai-ginger-lamb soup descends from the Han-dynasty formulary.

TCM properties

Nature · warming　Flavour · sweet　Meridians · spleen、kidney

Traditional food therapy

In Cantonese food therapy lamb is used to dispel cold, warm the centre and replenish qi, blood and the kidneys, the signature warming meat of winter soups.

Cautions: read first

• Avoid it if you are hot and dry, have a cold with fever, or have a sore throat
• Go carefully if you have yin deficiency with flaring fire
• Pregnant women should go carefully

Preparation

Cut the skin-on belly into pieces and blanch it to take out the gamey smell, then cook it with ginger, water chestnut and dried tangerine peel to keep that smell down.

Origin

Raised in grazing country nationwide and always stocked by the mainstream supermarkets. Australian lamb is the local norm; Hong Kong recipes traditionally use bone-in goat or mutton brisket, which is rarer in Australian retail. For the lamb claypot the cut is lamb breast (bone in) or lamb flap (boneless) from Asian and halal butchers; forequarter chops are the supermarket stand-in, and goat from a halal butcher is closest to the Hong Kong flavour

Availability in Australia

Easy to find

Pairs well with