What is Rou Jia Mo?

The name translates as "meat between bread." In Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi, street stalls sell roujiamo as a snack to eat on the go. In English it is often called a Chinese hamburger, which is where the nickname Chinese burger comes from. Traditionally, cooks in Xi'an fill a baiji mo, a flat yeast bread, with lazhi rou. That is pork belly braised for hours in a spiced broth. In the city's Muslim Quarter you can get roujiamo with beef or lamb.

The meat: braising pork belly

Use pork belly with layers of fat and meat. Lean pork turns dry and stringy in 2 hours, and the fat keeps the filling juicy. You can find star anise and cassia, the Chinese cinnamon, at an Asian grocery store. Ceylon cinnamon from the supermarket tastes milder, so use one more stick. Read more about the spice under Star anise.

Keep the broth at a gentle simmer. If it boils hard, the fibers contract and the meat turns tough. It is done when a chopstick slides in without resistance. Before chopping, ladle off 100 ml of the broth. Chop the fat and meat together roughly and mix 2 to 3 tbsp of broth into it, so the filling stays moist. Freeze the remaining broth and braise in it next time, and the meat will taste stronger.

The bread: baking mo in a pan

The street stalls in Xi'an bake their bread from yeast dough. The recipe card uses baking powder so you can carry on after a 30-minute rest. Divide the dough into four pieces, roll each into a long rope, coil the rope into a spiral, and press it into a flatbread about 1.5 cm thick. That gives the bread the rings on the surface that you know from photos of Xi'an. Bake the flatbreads over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes per side. Over high heat they burn outside and stay raw inside.

If you want it like the original, replace the baking powder with 3 g dry yeast and let the dough rise for an hour.

Common mistakes

• Meat chopped too fine: As a paste, the filling loses its bite. Chop it coarsely enough that you can still tell fat from meat.
• Bread cut open too soon: Fresh from the pan, the flatbread steams inside. Let it rest for 2 minutes and slice it open from the side without cutting all the way through.
• Too much dark soy sauce: It adds color and sweetness. In larger amounts, the broth tastes of molasses.

Variations and sides

Mix chopped green chili and cilantro into the meat, and the filling tastes fresher. For the beef version, braise beef brisket in the same broth for about 2.5 hours. In Xi'an many people eat roujiamo together with cold liangpi noodles. For hot noodles from the same province, try Biang Biang Mian or Shaanxi You Po Mian.

Pork belly in a bun also exists in Taiwan: for Gua Bao, you tuck the meat into a steamed yeast bun. Glazed and cubed, pork belly comes to the table as Hong Shao Rou.