When making this dish, the cook breaks the bread into small pieces and adds them to the lamb soup.

Lamb or beef is boiled with bones, Sichuan pepper, star anise, tsaoko, cinnamon, and other spices until the meat is tender and the broth is done.

In traditional restaurants, customers must break up the bread themselves first into thumb-sized chunks before handing it back to the chef.

The restaurant then boils the broth, thins it with hot water, and adds in the prepared meat along with cellophane noodles.

After Zhao Kuangyin became the emperor, he returned to the small merchant place and asked the chief to make the soup again.