Bhutan: Ema Datshi and Jaju
Jaju- turnip leaf and milk soup.
First off, if you’ve never seen pictures of Bhutan, you need to stop reading and start Googling! What a gorgeous, off-the-beaten-path country! Bhutan is a small mountainous country surrounded by India, Tibet, Nepal and Bangladesh. It’s known for it’s beautiful monasteries and is called “Land of the Thunder Dragon,” which is why there’s a dragon on their flag (definitely my favorite flag so far haha). Unfortunately, this country is not super open to tourists- it’s very expensive and the only way to go is to book through a government tour agency.
When I was searching for a recipe to make for Bhutan, I realized they reeeeeeally like chili peppers- they were literally in every single dish I found. I’ve slowly gotten used to and have started to enjoy spicier dishes over the years, but I was super nervous to try Bhutan’s national dish, Ema Datshi, because it’s essentially just hot peppers cooked in cheese. But I was actually really pleasantly surprised! It wasn’t nearly as spicy as I imagined it would be and, served over rice, it was SO good!
Traditionally this recipe calls for yak cheese, but yak dairy products are really hard to come by in Colorado (who knew lol??), so I used a combination of feta, white cheddar and ricotta. I also used hatch chilies rather than thai chilies since they’re locally grown in Colorado, were in season, and I’d never tried them before!
I also wanted to try a dish that had some green veggies in it, so I decided to make jaju, which is a turnip leaf and milk soup. Doesn’t sound the greatest but it was actually pretty good! I used spinach rather turnip leaves as I couldn’t find any, although in the future I might try collard greens since I think they’d be more similar to turnip leaves. This dish also had chilies in it but it was super mild and light!
Overall, I was really happy with this meal, which was nice because I did not think I’d like it much lol! I’m not sure how authentic everything tasted with the different substitutions I made, but I definitely enjoyed my version and I think you will too!