Churu

Ema Datshi (Tibetan: Churu) and Senkong

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• published: 24 Aug 2014
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See recipe at: http://www.yowangdu.com/tibetan-food/ema-datshi.html Ema datshi is one of the more exotic Himalayan dishes beloved by Tibetans, who sometimes call it churu, or "rotten cheese" soup. The name ema datshi itself is Bhutanese, where it is considered the national dish, and refers to "chili" and "cheese." This recipe packs a powerful flavor and is not for the faint of heart, combining mega-hot spiciness with a strong stinkiness from the molded cheese. Tibetans joke that if you cook churu, your neighbors all know what's for dinner :-) Our version of the recipe comes to us from our friend Loden Jigme, whose ema datshi is famous among his friends. Loden la's recipe originates in the town of Bomdilla in the Arunachal Pradesh region of India, which borders Tibet, Bhutan and Burma. In this version of the soup, we use beef and potato, though it is also common in the Tibetan borderlands to use a pork and labu (Asian radish) combination. You can also make a vegetarian version of the ema datshi recipe by using wood ear mushrooms (or almost any kind of mushroom) and ping (crystal noodles) instead of the beef. Just throw the ping in near the end so that they won't melt down too much in the soup. Ema datshi can be eaten with rice, or scooped up with pieces of a very unusual traditional Tibetan dish called senkong, a mound of steamed and boiled buckwheat or red millet flour used to scoop up the ema datshi. Eating the soup this way is common among the Doeba people of Western Tibet and the Moemba people of Arunachal Pradesh in India. Although few Tibetans in the West know how to make senkong, we are fortunate to know someone who does, our friend Dorje Lobsang, who is from Moem. He kindly got together last year (in March 2013) with Loden la to prepare an ema datshi and senkong feast :-) Get the recipe here: http://www.yowangdu.com/tibetan-food/ema-datshi.html