🍽️ Hu Guo

Starchy gruel with fried dough, Gobi breakfast.

Hu Guo is a one-of-a-kind breakfast of Jiuquan, at the western end of the Hexi Corridor in Gansu. A chicken or meat broth is thickened with flour or starch into a rich gruel, then loaded with fried dough twists (mahua), potato-starch sheets, sliced meat and broad beans, simmered until the dough twists are half-soft but still hold a little crunch. The bowl is thick and hearty, salty and warming; the fried twists soak up the broth while keeping a faint bite. Generous and high-calorie, it is exactly what is needed on a cold Gobi morning. In Jiuquan it is sold from early street stalls in the old city, eaten by locals for decades and remembered by visitors as the defining taste of the town.