Visiting Bhutan for the first time and don’t know what to eat? Well, the Bhutanese have long known to be very inventive with their local produce and have an exciting array of dishes and drinks that fuel their energy in the mountain air and keep the happiness quotient on a high.
Begin your adventures with a warming tumbler of Suja, which is tea leaves boiled in water to which is added a lump of butter and a dash of salt. Originally, the Bhutanese used yak butter, but you could go with a local version of Amul!
Another warm up in the chill mountain air is the local brew called ara, which can have quite a kick. Maybe you can try that a bit later in your adventures. In fact, you can even learn from a local expert on how to make this alcoholic beverage and wow your buddies back home on your booze making skills. Most Bhutanese families would make it in the home kitchen, so it shouldn’t be too complicated.
While momos with all kinds of fillings are a familiar in restaurants and eateries, you definitely need to check out more authtentic Bhutanese staples.
The core elements of Bhutanese culinary pursuits revolve around local produce. Vegetables like spinach, pumpkins, turnips, radishes, tomatoes, river weed, onions and green beans are consumed in everyday meals, but may get an exotic twist on special occasions. Pork, chicken beef and eggs keep non-veg palates happy and so does, occasionally, yak meat. Rice, buckwheat and barley accompany both veg and non-veg fare depending on the local traditions. Travelling through the country you cannot miss the trails of drying chillies from terraces, on sidewalks or in the fields. Chillies are at the heart of many a Bhutanese dish – red, green and the exotic and rare white chillies add another dimension to each dish, in terms of flavour and heat! And the other essential cook’s companion is cheese. And when the Bhutanese cook puts hot chillies (ema) and cheese (datsi) together they can teach you a thing or two about being inventive with these essential components of many dishes.
Talking about chillies and cheese–you must begin your culinary adventure in Bhutan with Ema Datshi, the quintessential national dish and the pride of every home cook, who might add a secret family twist to the dish, but which in its bare essentials is the same everywhere. This stew-like curry, teamed with red rice, is cooked with green, yellow or red chilies, yak or cow’s milk cheese, onions and tomatoes. Oh yes, the Bhutanese love chillies!
Off on a morning trek? How about starting with a yummy breakfast of Gondo Datshi. It’s scrambled eggs, but Bhutanese-style–with dollops of butter, plenty of cheese and slivers of chilli for their bite. You can team this up with red rice and a splash of chilli sauce!
Lunch and dinner can be fun-filled occasions for explorations. You could start off with a delicious salad, Goen Hogay, a lovely combination of sliced cucumber tomatoes, chilli flakes, cilantro, Sichuan pepper and onions. Oh yes! How could we forget the scattering of cheese? And now for the vegetarian palate! There’s the Khatem, a bitter gourd (karela In Hindi) dish. Sliced and fried in butter these bitter gourds even make their way to the breakfast table as well. Those can’t do without potatoes should tuck into Kewa datshi. The dish is all about thinly sliced potatoes, beautifully sautéed, with lots of butter and liberally drenched with cheese and a sprinkling of chillies. A delicious stew like curry made with a combination of mushrooms, cheese, butter and chillies is Shamu Datshi. We can team it with red rice, which is actually pale pink, soft and slightly sticky when cooked. From the Haa region there’s Hoentoe, fragrant buckwheat dumplings stuffed with turnip greens, cheese, spinach and other ingredients. If you’re in the Bhumthang region, be sure to sample Puta, the buckwheat noodles are a staple here as buckwheat is grown extensively here.
Non-vegetarians have an amazing number of dishes ti choose from. You might like to begin this adventure with familiar looking chicken curry Jasha Maroo made of diced chicken cooked with chilies, onion, tomato paste, garlic, coriander leaves and a good helping of ginger. If pork is your thing, try Phaksha Paa you must. They make this curry of strips of boneless pork cooked to melting point on a low fire with radish,ginger, bok choy, and chili powder. It’s topped by a sprinkling of dried pork and fresh green chillies and served with rice. Sikam Paa is another pork dish; it’s made from sun-dried pork bellies that are fried up with dried red chillies.
Because of its high protein value, beef is a popular choice for meat dishes in Bhutan. An exotic offering that’s worthy of your time is Shakam Shukam Datshi. Not readily available at the best of times, you can sample it in some restaurant, you should not give this chance a miss. What makes it unique is that it’s made with white dried chilies, which are very rare and give the dish its exotic flavour. These chillies are combined with traditional Bhutanese cheese and cooked with dried beef. The white chilies actually have a sour taste, so they give the dish a completely new vibe! Maybe it’s time now for you to try Yaksha Shakam, a dish made with dried yak meat. The Bhutanese love their dried yak jerky cooked with fermented yak cheese.
So by the time you are ready to return to Bhutan, your palate will be quite well-versed with the doings of the Bhutanese kitchen from where many other interesting dishes wend their way to the table. Enjoy!