Kǎo Ròu Náng (烤肉馕) is grilled meat with náng, the Xinjiang pairing of skewered, spice-rubbed lamb served on or wrapped in the dense baked flatbread that does double duty as plate and bread. This is a sandwich in function rather than form: the náng is built thick and sturdy precisely so it can carry hot kebab meat and its fat and spice without going limp. The angle is the bread as a structural partner to the grill. The crust has to be firm enough to hold up under greasy, just-cooked meat while the chewier crumb soaks just enough rendered fat and cumin to come alive.
The build is two separate crafts brought together at the end. The náng is a low-water wheat dough, kneaded firm, often docked in a pattern at the center to keep it flat, and baked hard against the inner wall of a clay oven so it comes out crusty and freckled outside, chewy within, sometimes scattered with sesame or onion. The meat is lamb, cut into chunks, threaded onto skewers, rubbed with cumin, chili, salt, and pepper, and grilled fast over charcoal so the outside chars and the fat renders while the inside stays juicy. To eat, the meat is either laid across a piece of torn náng or pulled off the skewer and folded into it, the bread catching the drippings. Good execution shows lamb that is charred at the edges and still moist inside, a heavy hit of cumin and chili that clings rather than burns, and bread that is sturdy enough to hold the load while taking on fat at the contact face without turning to mush. Sloppy work shows up fast: meat grilled dry and tight, under-seasoned so it reads flat against the plain bread, or stale náng so hard it neither folds nor takes on any of the fat and spice.
It shifts mostly by the cut and fat of the meat, the heat of the rub, and the bread itself. Fattier lamb with tail fat threaded between the lean pieces stays juicier on the grill; beef or chicken sometimes stand in. Some stalls lean the spice hard into chili, others keep cumin dominant. The náng ranges from thin and crisp to thick and bready, plain or sesame-topped, each carrying the meat differently. Big plate chicken sopped with náng and the oven-baked lamb buns of the same region run on their own distinct logic and deserve their own articles rather than being crowded in here. What keeps kǎo ròu náng its own entry is the deliberate pairing of charcoal-grilled cumin lamb with sturdy baked náng used as both plate and wrapper.