Xinji Salted Donkey Meat with Hearth-Cake

This is a much-loved way of eating around Xinji: salted donkey meat, simmered in an aged broth and sliced cold, is tucked into a hearth cake baked against the wall of an earthen jar, crisp of crust and layered within; bitten hot, the savoury meat and crunchy cake bring out the best in one another.

The pairing of salted donkey meat and hearth cake has long circulated across the central Hebei plain, a common breakfast combination in the Xinji and Jinzhou area, a folk way of eating donkey beyond the banquet table and one of the most deeply rooted street snacks of Shijiazhuang's eastern counties.

A fresh-baked cake filled with freshly cut salted donkey, eaten by hand while hot, with a bowl of offal soup or millet congee, is the most solid breakfast the people of Xinji know.

The jar-baked crisp hearth cake and the cold-cut donkey salted in an aged broth are what set this pairing apart.