The atlas · A cuisine · Beijing and the northern plain, northern China

Beijing

Also Jing, Jing cuisine, Peking cuisine
One of Chinese cooking's regional kitchens · all 13 side by side

A wheat-and-mutton kitchen of the dry north, salty and savoury with fermented bean pastes, where palace banquets and street snacks grew up side by side.

Where it comes from

For some seven centuries Beijing was a capital, and its cooking gathered from everywhere the emperors ruled. The Ming and Qing imperial kitchens fed thousands a day and drew in Shandong cooks above all, whose braising, clear stocks and roasting shaped the city's grander restaurants. Roast duck, it's usually said, came north with the Ming court from Nanjing.

Beside the palace there was the street. The Muslim Hui, long settled around Niujie in the south-west of the old city, gave Beijing its taste for mutton — rinsed in boiling water, roasted, grilled on skewers — and many of its snacks. Wheat, not rice, is the staple: noodles, dumplings, steamed buns and flatbreads, with cabbage stored through the long winter.

Where in it

  1. The old cityThe hutongs inside the old walls, with duck houses, noodle shops and breakfast stalls — and Niujie, the Hui Muslim quarter, for mutton, tripe and snacks.Peking duckZhajiangmianInstant-boiled muttonDouzhiTanghuluBaoduJiaozi
  2. TianjinBeijing's old port on the Hai river, a city of snacks with a brisk humour of its own: Goubuli buns, jianbing guozi pancakes and fried dough twists.Goubuli baozi
  3. ZhangjiakouOld Kalgan, the gate in the Great Wall where the tea road set out for Mongolia. Sheep came south through it to Beijing's markets, and its own table is oat noodles and mutton.Instant-boiled mutton

How it cooks

Hung-oven roasting (guàlú)
The whole bird hung in a domed oven over fruitwood, its skin dried and glazed first so it crisps like glass.
Rinsing (shuàn)
Paper-thin raw meat dipped for seconds in plain boiling water at the table, then into a sesame sauce.
Frying the paste (zhá jiàng)
Bean pastes fried slowly in oil with meat until dark and fragrant — the base of the city's noodles.
Quick-blanching (bào)
Tripe or thin meat in and out of boiling water in moments, so it stays crisp and tender.

Always in the kitchen

sweet bean saucesoybean pastesesame pastefermented tofulight soyblack vinegarShaoxing winespring oniongarlicgingerSichuan peppernapa cabbagewheat flourmutton

Cook from it

Tonight, with what's good in October

Its classics

BeijingPeking duckA whole duck, its skin dried and glazed, roasted until it shatters, then carved at the table and wrapped in thin pancakes with sweet bean sauce, spring onion and cucumber.No one here has made it yetBeijingZhajiangmianThick wheat noodles under a spoonful of dark, salty sauce — bean paste fried slowly with diced pork — and a heap of raw, crunchy vegetables to mix through.No one here has made it yetBeijingInstant-boiled muttonPaper-thin slices of raw mutton swished for a moment in plain boiling water, in a chimneyed copper pot over charcoal, then dipped in a rich sesame sauce.No one here has made it yetBeijingDouzhiA hot, grey-green, sour drink of fermented mung bean starch water, sipped with crisp fried dough rings and shredded pickles.No one here has made it yetBeijingTanghuluHawthorn berries on a bamboo skewer, dipped in boiling sugar syrup that sets into a thin, glassy shell — a winter street snack.No one here has made it yetBeijingBaoduBeef or lamb tripe cut into strips, dipped in boiling water for a few seconds until just crisp, and eaten with a sesame-paste sauce.No one here has made it yetBeijingGoubuli baoziSmall steamed buns of half-raised dough, pleated tightly over a juicy pork filling loosened with stock.No one here has made it yetBeijingJiaoziCrescent dumplings of thin wheat dough around pork and chives or cabbage, boiled and dipped in black vinegar with garlic.No one here has made it yet

Cooked here

No one here has cooked Beijing yet.