Sülen
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Sülen are the so-called "boiled pot" dishes of ancient Mongolian cuisine. They are the most significant category of dishes attested to in the Yinshan Zhengyao (YSZY), making up 12.3% off the 219 recorded recipes of the Khan's court. The texture of dishes cooked by the boiling pot method varies from pilafs and very thick stews to soups, all the recipes in Juan 1 of the YSZY were made using the same base mutton and cardamom broth as a cooking liquid.[1]
The sülen dishes are part of the Mongol tradition of cooking whatever was on hand in a pot of hot mutton broth. Usually poor cuts of mutton or offal would be used, with bones for the broth, thickened with legumes or grains and most often flavored with onion and chives.[2]
The term appears in the Secret History of the Mongols, possibly distinguished from umdan (drinks). The most common ways of preparing meat in Mongolian cuisine were roasting and boiling with sülen as the accepted term for the hot pot style of boiled meats.[3]