The Delicious Legacy of China’s Silk Road Trading Routes

It’s a bit controversial to say this in China, but I’ve never been a fan of rice. Luckily, I live in Beijing, so rice is easy to avoid; most restaurants in the capital serve flatbreads, steamed buns or dumplings. However, on a visit to Urumqi a few years ago, a friend of mine insisted we try Xinjiang lamb pilaf (yángròu zhūafàn, 羊肉抓饭) from the Uyghur quarter. We found a local restaurant and sat upstairs so I could peer into the kitchen. I watched the cooks serving up the rice from a huge iron pot known as a qazan, an ancient vessel from Central Asia that is similar to a wok but with taller sides. The pilaf had been made much earlier in the day, then kept warm on a low heat, and the staff spooned it out onto plates as the orders came in. 

There are four main ingredients in a Xinjiang pilaf: rice, lamb, raisins and carrots. A low heat transforms these simple elements into something special. The rice plumps up with the broth, the carrots turn buttery, the lamb falls apart, and the raisins pop with sweetness. In the years since that initial introduction to the dish, I have travelled all over Xinjiang, and I’ve found that every Uyghur cook puts their twist on this dish. Sometimes it’s drier, sometimes wetter, sometimes richer, sometimes more fragrant. Some cooks add big lamb chops, others keep the chunks of meat smaller. (With this recipe, I have opted for something in the middle of all of these; a good place to start.) 

Xinjiang pilaf is not, however, a complicated dish. It’s a one-pan wonder that comes together after a gentle simmer, as long as you get the seasoning of salt and fat right. Just remember that this is a zhuafan (抓饭, pilaf) and not a chaofan (炒饭, stir-fried rice), so that means there is no shaking the pan or stirring the rice and no vigorous flame. All that’s needed is a little time to tease out the flavors.

Rice in Northern China?

As anyone familiar with the basics of Chinese cuisine knows, China divides into two broad regional diets. The North is a land of wheat, meat and dairy, while the South is a land of rice, fish and fruit. Rice could not grow in the arid landscape of the North, and for thousands of years citizens of Northern dynasties survived without the water-loving grain. Even today, the people of the North still prefer a steaming bowl of noodles, a stuffed bao bun or a plate of boiled dumplings over rice. 

As expected then, there are few rice-based recipes from the North. The one exception is the province of Xinjiang. And even here, rice dishes are incongruous with the landscape: Xinjiang’s rolling prairies and vast desert are not the preferred climates of rice. So how is it that one of the region’s most classic dishes relies on rice? 

The answer to this conundrum comes back to the ancient Silk Road that historically wove its way through the area’s valleys and desert, from oasis town to oasis town. For centuries, goods from neighboring countries came to China through this trade route, and it’s clear that curious chefs experimented with adding them to Xinjiang’s cuisine—while also, perhaps, imitating Persian or Uzbek dishes like plov/pilaf that already used these ingredients.

Rice, in fact, would have travelled through the Silk Route in both directions: It came to the area from India, via the Kashmir and Karakoram routes and across the Taklamakan Desert, and it likely also came up from Southern China, traveling through Xinjiang before heading across the border to Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and beyond. Rice ultimately became so popular here that people even experimented with cultivating it, usually planting it close to lakes, where irrigation is easier. As the local Uyghur population of Xinjiang became accustomed to these delicious grains, they created dishes that were distinctly theirs, such as this regional style of pilaf.

Zhuafan likely originated during the Tang dynasty, and it would have fallen under the general category of dishes known as húbǐng (胡饼), which referred to foreign-influenced foods introduced into China via the Silk Road. (In ancient China  “Hu” referred to non-Han ethnic groups, while “bing” referred to all staple foods, such as rice and other grains.) 

Legend credits the Persian physician Ibn Sina (Avicenna) with inventing this general style of slow-cooked rice dish over a thousand years ago, as part of a nutritional therapy regimen. Eventually, this cooking style spread both westward and eastward. Because ingredients and word-of-mouth recipes traveled back and forth along the Silk Road, it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact origins of zhuafan, but most agree that Ibn Sina’s pilaf influenced a great number of modern-day rice-based dishes, from Spanish paella to Indian biryani to Uzbek plov and Xinjiang zhuafan. Each country and region experimented with this cooking method and put their local twist on it. For zhuafan, that twist was using local lamb, raisins and yellow carrots as the primary add-ins.

Zhuafan became a cherished recipe in Xinjiang, but for some reason it never gained much popularity in other Northern Chinese cities. Today, tourists flock to Beijing to eat hot pot (huǒ guō, 火锅), lamb skewers (chuàn’r, 串儿), hot-iron lamb (Běijīng kǎoròu, 北京烤肉) and even Big Plate Chicken (dàpán jī, 大盘鸡)—all dishes that were brought from Xinjiang thousands of years ago. Zhuafan, however, rarely appears on menus in the capital city. 

Choosing Ingredients for Xinjiang Pilaf

Lamb: There are only a few ingredients in a traditional Xinjiang pilaf, so, much of the dish’s flavor comes from the meat. As a result, it’s important to use the best lamb you can find. The West is somewhat obsessed with lean meats, which won’t work here at all. You want a fatty cut, like a leg, shoulder, neck or rib and, if you can find it, a grass-fed animal. Grass-fed fat packs a lot more flavor. 

Rice: You want a medium- or long-grain rice for this dish such as Calrose, Nishiki or basmati. Short-grain varieties will turn mushy as they prefer quick cooking without too much liquid. These grains should be able to take in the stock so that the dish is slightly fluffy when finished. 

Carrots: Yellow carrots have a depth of flavor and a subtle sweetness that many orange supermarket carrots lack. If you can’t find them, try to use an heirloom carrot. The power of this dish comes from the lamb and carrots and nothing else, so use the best you can find of both. 

Fat and Oil: It should be no secret that adding lots of oil and salt to a dish makes it taste delicious. I’ve watched a few restaurants make this, and they start off with a lot of oil and a lot of lamb fat. I’ve reduced the amount to be a bit health-conscious without sacrificing the flavor too much. However, I’ve still listed “lamb fat” as one of the ingredients below. If your cut of lamb is very fatty, then you might not need this. And if your meat is leaner but you’re struggling to source lamb fat, you can substitute pork or beef fat. 

Raisins: The sweet element in this dish, these raisins are reminiscent of the dish’s Middle Eastern influences. Han Chinese find having sweet elements in savory dishes a bit strange, but if you omit the raisins, the dish will be far too rich. 

Making Xinjiang Pilaf at Home in a Wok

The traditional vessel for making zhuafan is a wide-bottomed iron pot with high sides known as a qazan. It is similar to a wok but is often thicker and is designed to sit on the stovetop for hours while ingredients simmer away. You do not need a qazan to make zhuafan. In fact, a large iron wok will do just fine. I have adapted this recipe for the wok, and the result is basically identical to traditional qazan-cooked zhuafan. 

Washing rice is tedious, but it’s an essential process, and it completely revolutionized my rice cooking. It removes the starch that gives rice a gummy texture and, therefore, instantly makes any rice fluffier—so don’t skip this step. Also, avoid using a rice cooker; it doesn’t work for this preparation. The rice will overcook and turn to a mush before everything else in the pot is ready. 

Each rice variety is different, so you may need to add more water to your zhuafan when it’s cooking. This might be ½ cup extra or even a touch more. Keep an eye on the zhuafan. If you can see the base is dry, pour the water over the surface of the rice. It will soak into the rice that needs it and will also turn to steam, to keep everything moist.

One tip: I’ve made this dish a number of times, and when you make it at home, a half-batch tastes much better than a full batch, because in a large batch, the rice at the top steams without absorbing much of the stock. Wok lids are not ideal for keeping steam in, compared with a heavy traditional qazan lid, so I’ve found that if you use too much rice, the steam doesn’t have time to cook the grains on the top. Additionally, woks are not good at conducting low heat; the base and the sides are much hotter than they are in a qazan, thus the rice at the top and center are not exposed to the same temperature as they are when cooked the traditional way. The solution is a bit of a pain, but if you use two woks or pans, and split the ingredients across them, you’ll have a perfect result. (A Dutch oven could also work here, but I’ve found the rice around the edges crisps up more than it should.)

For more hearty rice-based dishes, check out Zoe’s Weeknight Hong Kong Clay Pot Rice (Bo Zai Fan, 煲仔饭), Taylor’s take on Chengdu Taste’s Chengdu Fried Rice (Chaofan, 炒饭) and Kathy’s Healing Century Egg and Pork Congee (Pidan Shourou Zhou, 皮蛋瘦肉粥).