One of the best parts of travelling to Ladakh is trying out the local food and bringing back recipes to remind you of your trip. The Ladakhi cuisine is very different from the Indian cuisine, it is not spicy and it mainly originates from the culinary traditions of Tibet. Here is a list of the top 8 dishes you shouldn’t leave Ladakh without tasting.
1.Thukpa
Thukpa is a much-loved classic of Ladakhi cuisine. It is a clear soup with vegetables and noodles made of wheat or barley flour. This dish also often contains meat such as pieces of chicken, mutton or yak. Thukpa is customarily served with spicy “chutney” to further enhance the taste.
2. Skyu
It is a stew made with barley or wheat dough kneaded into thumb-sized flatten balls. It is slowly cooked in a pot with water, meat and root vegetables such as potatoes, turnips and carrots. In villages, it is also habitual to include fresh milk as a main ingredient.
3. MOMOS
Momos, without a doubt, is the most popular dish in Ladakh. It is a dumpling filled with meat or vegetable wrapped in dough. While momos stuffed with minced meat enjoys popularity among locals, veg momos are also savoured alike. These dumplings are either steamed or fried and served with dipping sauce.
A few restaurants in Leh have even started serving chocolate momos for dessert. Not really traditional but worth a try!
4. Tingmo
These bun-shaped Tibetan bread is steamed and served with vegetables, meat and dal. Tingmo is a delicate, soft and fluffy bun that is prepared from wheat flour without putting any filling. It is best served hot and is mostly served with meat.
5. Chutagi
Chutagi literally translates as “water bread” (chu means “water” while tagi is “bread” in Ladakhi). It is one of the famous pasta-like dish with a rich vegetable-based sauce.Consisting of bow-tie-shaped pieces of dough cooked in a thick soup made of potatoes, carrots, peas, and local leafy green vegetables (similar to spinach).
6. Chhurpi (Yak cheese)
Chhurpi, made from the milk of dzomo (a hybrid between domestic cattle and yak), is used as an ingredient to create flavourful delicacies in Ladakh. It is white and is added to thukpa to bring out flavour when vegetables or meat are not available in winter. Chhurpi is also added to tsampa (roasted barley flour) and mixed with Tibetan butter tea to prepare kholak which is then eaten with vegetables or minced meat.
7. Butter tea
In Ladakh, butter tea is also known as “gur-gur chai”.Its particularity is that yak butter and salt are added to the boiling water infused with tea leaves. In the Ladakhi hospitality tradition, the host constantly refills the guest’s cup to the brim as soon as a few sips are drunk so that the cup is never empty.
8. Khambir
Khambir is a delicious traditional leavened wheat-based bread. The handmade round-shaped fermented dough is baked over a hot stone and then directly in the fire. The bread is even better to eat when it’s freshly baked and still warm. Typically, Ladakhi people eat Khambir with scramble eggs or vegetables for breakfast. The bread is also served as a snack with butter tea.
