BHUTANESE CUISINE - EMA PA

I am doing another Bhutanese cuisine after such a long time. Anyways today we have “ema-pa” on the menu. Pa actually means meat (beef or pork) or dried meat but here Ema-pa’s direct translation would be chilli pa, meaning the dried red chillies are referred as a meat here since we Bhutanese enjoy spicy chillies as much as we enjoy meat. It looks like ema-datshi too but you will notice that this doesnt have cheese in it so thats why its not an ema-datshi...haha

Yummy Spicy ema pa made at home

So to start off with the recipe, first let’s look into the ingredients. And the recipe here is for 3-4 serves, so I would personally take 7 to 8 dried red chillies (famous in Bhutan, everyone will have it), one large spoon of butter or cooking oil, salt and water. Red onions, tomatoes and garlic are optional (personally I love the flavor so if it was my curry I would have them in the pot. Make sure you put them according to how much you want, I would take one each and a little garlic). And Yes! That’s all the ingredients you need to make this wonderful spicy dish…I made your day huh?? Anyways, now let me tell you, this is a super easy recipe.

I would personally take 7 to 8 dried red chillies, one onion, one tomato and

First you need pot and place it on your stove.

1.   Put half a cup of water (or even less, depending on your chilli quantity) just to make sure that the heated pan doesn’t burn the chillies.

2.   Now tear you chillies into halves and put it in the pot.

3.   Sprinkle enough salt on top of the torn chillies and add butter/cooking oil in it.

4.   If you are putting the optional ingredients, now would be the time to chop them and add them too

5.   Cook until the water is dry

Believe it or not you are done when all the water is dried up and you have properly mixed the ingredients. Garnish it with spring onions if you want (if you garnish with spring onion, you can skip the use of red onions while cooking)

PS: like I said in my previous article, the quantity of all the ingredients should be based on your taste buds. So keep tasting it while cooking it.

ENJOY