Seven Snacks Are Popular in Beijing

1. Quick-Fried Tripe: It is an Islamic snack of tripe of sheep or cattle. When served, it is first cut into stripes or slices. Then, it is boiled in water. After it is cooked and dipped into sesame sauce it gets ready for eating.

2. Boiled Sheep's Head: This is another Islamic snack people eat while drinking some wine. It undergoes the following procedures. First, boil sheep's head in water without putting in any seasoning and then cut it into paper-thin slices, at last scatter over it with a kind of special salt.

3. Pancakes with Meat-Fillings: It's a kind of court snack, eating as a breakfast dessert by Empress Dowager Ci Xi. When you eat it you need to hollow a pancake and fill it with some minced meat. The pancake is a little burnt outside while the inside is still tender. It tastes salty, delicious and a bit sweet.

4. Sticky Rice with Sweet Fillings: This was once a court snack in Yuan Dynasty. Sticky rice is first steamed, pounded into pulp, shaped into a ball and then filled with sesame and white sugar, pea-flour, jujube paste or some other fillings. Then it is spread over with rice flour. It looks frostlike, tastes smooth and flexible and its fillings are loose and sweet.

5. Rolling Donkey: Funny name, isn't it? It is a kind of cake made of bean-flour and is a famous Islamic snack in Beijing. It is made from steamed glutinous millet or sticky rice, scattered with fried bean-flour and filled with red pea.

6. Fried Liver: Fried liver is actually done with such raw material as pig's intestines and some liver with soy sauce, mashed garlic, starch, aniseed etc as seasonings. The intestine is boiled with seasonings and later the liver is added. When cooked, the juice is sparkling and clear while the intestine is tender and the liver is tasty. It is in fact not fried but boiled.

7. Filled Sausage: Filled Sausage is a dish made with intestine filled with starch, minced meat and some spices. It is first steamed and then cut into cubes and fried. When it is done, it looks inviting with salty water and garlic juice.