Pages

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Cooking Class: Tibetan Breads

One morning in Dharamsala, when Dana was feeling a little under the weather (note to fellow travelers: don't eat the samosas sold at the bus station at 6am), I decided to take a Tibetan cooking class.

From K - India I

Sangye's Kitchen is run by a 32-year old Tibetan exile living in Mcleodganj. He runs cooking classes 6 days a week, and there are three different classes to choose from: Tibetan breads, Tibetan momo dumplings, and Tibetan noodle soups.
From K - India I
I took the Tibetan bread cooking class, where we learned 2 types of steamed bread (tingmos), a fried cookie, and the famous Tibetan brown bread.


Below: Sangye slicing the dough for the fried cookies:
From K - India I
After slicing, we cut a slit in each strip of dough and turned them inside out.

From K - India I


From K - India I
After frying. These cookies were crispy and rich but not sweet - I think they only had 1 or 2 tablespoons of sugar in the entire batch.

From K - India I
This is the base of the steamed bread: we mixed mustard oil, turmeric, and garlic and spread it on the dough before rolling it up and cutting it like cinnamon rolls.

From K - India I


From K - India I


From K - India I


From K - India I


From K - India I
Finally, my favorite: Tibetan brown bread. It's a basic yeasted whole grain bread, and it can be cooked in a skillet or in the oven. It is sweet and very satisfying.

Sangye was a skilled cook and he was very friendly and open - he told us about his experiences escaping from Tibet, traveling on foot with a group of exiles through the Himalayas, through Nepal, and into India. His story was heart-wrenching and hearing it transformed the already-interesting cooking class into an extremely memorable and meaningful experience

From K - India I

No comments:

Post a Comment