This topping for Iranian bread (or its Chinese derivative shaobing) is truly unique. We know of nothing like it anywhere else. It is also very different from anything else in the YSZY. A very Mongol flavor is implied, if it is not a straight borrowing from nomadic Turks. The “Iranian cakes” are Persian bread (nan), still a staple food in Ningxia and Xinjiang. In the Chinese Islamic Restaurant, a Ningxia Hui restaurant near Los Angeles, we have eaten similar stews with their incomparable nan–style bread. This particular stew, however, is one of the YSZY’s amazing, unique, and creative blendings of Mongol, Near Eastern, and Chinese elements (cf. recipes # 21–23, etc.).
2010, Paul D. Buell, Eugene N[ewton] Anderson, “[Juan One] Translation”, in A Soup for the Qan: Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol Era As Seen in Hu Sihui’s Yinshan Zhengyao (Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series; 9), 2nd edition, Leiden, Boston, Mass.: Brill, part B (Text and Translation), footnote 62, page 287