🍽️ Sha Soup

Eel-chicken morning soup, old Xuzhou.

Sha Soup is an ancient breakfast soup of Xuzhou, Jiangsu; the unusual character 'sha' comes from the local pronunciation. It is simmered for hours from old hen and pork bones, often with eel bones or wheat berries, and just before serving a beaten egg is poured in, setting into thin feathery shreds in the hot broth. The soup is milky yellow, rich and deeply savory, with a noticeable black-pepper warmth that comforts the stomach. Xuzhou locals commonly eat it with fried dough sticks, flat flatbread or pan-fried buns, and a morning bowl brings on a gentle sweat. Poured and served fresh with pepper to taste, it is a long-standing street flavor of this old Chu-Han city, and often the first bite visitors use to understand Xuzhou breakfast.