Jiayuguan Grilled Lamb Skewers

Jiayuguan grilled lamb skewers use tender lamb from the Gobi pastures, cut into chunks, threaded onto iron skewers and grilled over charcoal, seasoned with coarse salt, cumin and chilli powder until crisp outside and juicy within.

Jiayuguan's grilling culture reaches back to the Eastern Han, more than seventeen hundred years ago, vividly preserved on the painted bricks of tomb No. 6 in the Xincheng Wei-Jin tombs, which show servants roasting lamb skewers and entertaining guests, evidence that this Hexi craft has endured unbroken.

Grilled to order and eaten hot off the skewer, most often at streetside stalls and night markets, paired with a cold beer or apricot-skin tea in the liveliest scene of a Jiayuguan summer night.

The clean tenderness of Gobi-grazed lamb free of gaminess, the bold aroma of charcoal and cumin, and a lineage walked out of Wei-Jin tomb paintings set these skewers apart.