Preparing Droma and Droma Dresi and Droma Markhu

Tibetan food, traditionally, does not have a lot of sweets and there are not a lot of naturally sweet ingredients in Tibet.  However,  there are a few.  One sweet ingredient, unique to the himalayas, is droma.  Droma is a sort of wild sweet potato.  It is small, dark brown root, with a grainy texture and a mild and naturally sweet flavor similar to molasses.  Droma is used in a few Tibetan sweets, especially Droma Dresi and Droma Markhu.

Droma Dresi (left) and Droma Markhu (right), a recent photo from Yushu, Kham

Droma is stored dried, and as a result can keep for several years. When my friend M and I prepared Droma Dresi this past weekend, we were using Droma that was well over a year old, and that's fine. However, it does mean that it requires special preparation.


Techniques vary, but most people recommend soaking the droma over night. Just put the droma in a bowl and pour water until it completely covers the droma, and then a little bit more. Leave this over night and the droma will be ready to use in the morning.  Note that this is not ready to eat, just ready to use.

Soaked Droma

The simplest preparation of Droma, and the one most abhorrent to non-Tibetans, in Droma Markhu.  Mar means butter, and Khu means clear soup or juice.  Markhu, basically, means melted butter.  So Droma Markhu is droma absolutely floating and drenched in melted butter and sugar.  If you look at the top pictre, there is a dollop of sugared butter on top of the hot Droma, which will then be stirred in.  To prepare Droma Markhu, just boile the droma for about 5-10 minutes until it has become tender enough to easily bite, but not soft.  Mix butter and sugar.  Dollop.  Did I mention that Tibetan food is not heart friendly?  Delicious though.

The most popular Droma desert is called Droma Dresi, or sweet rice with Droma.  This is not only a desert, but a celebratory dish.  If you attend religious festivities, a wedding, or any other big Tibetan special event, chances are the first thing that will happen is people going around passing out cups of bhoeja (Tibetan salt and butter tea) and droma dresi.  Another fun fact:  I have not yet met anyone, no matter how unfamiliar with Tibetan culture they were, that hasn't liked Droma Dresi.  If you can't get droma, you could replace it with cubed yam or leave it out altogether. However, I think it's worth the effort to find it.

So, without further ado,

Droma Dresi

Ingredients:
3-4 cups of Basmati rice (really this depends on how many people you are serving)
a heaping handful of Droma
a handful of golden raisins
a handful of cashews
a cup of pineapple, cut into small bite-sized pieces (optional and not traditional, but I had it this way in Xining, Amdo, and fell in love with it)
sugar to taste
half a stick of butter (minimum!!!)

Pre-prep:
Soak the Droma overnight in room-temperature water.  Drain before preparing.

Preparation:

-Prepare the Basmati rice according to instructions
-While the rice is cooking, soak the golden raisins in warm water for about 15 minutes
-Bring a small pot of water to a boil, boil the dresi for about 5-10 minutes or until tender enough to easily bite, but not soft enough to squish with your fingers.
-When the rice has about 5 minutes left and virtually all the water is gone, stir in the raisins and cashews

Stirring in the raisins will plump them up

-Melt the butter completely

-When the butter has melted, add sugar and hot butter together to the rice, then add the pineapple and droma and stir while still hot

-Taste and adjust sugar

And there it is! Droma dresi, a delicious desert and an important food for special occasions

Our finished product

Losar Sang! Minyak Pholo

Happy Losar! Yes, I know I'm a few weeks late, but I've been moving. Anyway, I've decided to post a special Losar recipe to celebrate, even though I am late.

A Losar Altar

I spent much of this losar with my friend, Drolma, from Chamdo. She's a great cook.

Drolma with a bowl of Droma Dresil, or sweet rice, to start our Losar

Beef Momos

Anyway, I started to get nostalgic for a food I had during Losar of 2009, in the Minyak region of Kham, Pholo. Pholo is a big, puffy, sweet momo. While I have had some sweet momos in other areas of Tibet, Pholo are my favorite and are very unique. Outside of Minyak, I've never met people who've eaten them. Perhaps a few other areas of Tibet eat Pholo, but I've not encountered them. After talking with Drolma, we decided to make Pholo. We made a bunch and several people, Tibetan and western, helped us eat them. Everyone loved them, so I decided to share the recipe here.

Minyak Pholo
Ingredients:
Flour, 1 kg
Baking Powder, 1 handful
Powdered Chura, 1/4 kilo (Tibetan dried cheese)
Sugar, 2 big handfuls
half a kilo of Tsampa (Tibetan barley flour)
Walnuts, 2 handfuls, crushed
Butter, 5-6 sticks, maybe more....

Equipment
a steamer

Chura is kind of hard to get outside of Tibet. I'm not sure if there is a good replacement for it. I'm just going to have to assume that you have chura. Otherwise, I'm sure it will taste good without.

Chura is rock hard, so take your chura in a bowl and pour about one cup of warm water into it. This should be absorbed immediately. Stir it around so that all of the chura gets wet. The Chura should quickly start to soften.

soaking Chura

At this point, add the sugar to the chura and stir it around. If you are working without chura, you can mix the sugar into the Tsampa instead.
In another bowl, mix your flour and baking powder together. Make sure its well mixed. Then add water until you have a stretchy, flexible dough that looks kind of like this
Wrap this in plastic and ignore it for a while.

Next, mix your chura and tsampa together.

Gather as much butter as you can get on short notice. Melt it ALL.

We found four sticks of butter...it wasn't enough.

Mix your butter with your tsampa, chura, sugar and add the crushed walnuts. Knead this into a dough and make little balls out of it.


Take the dough out of the bag. Tear off small peices and make little discs of dough, like so.

Put a tsampa ball in the middle then wrap it up and roll it around in your hands until it forms a perfectly round, smooth, wrapped ball.

Continue until all the balls are wrapped

working hard in our Losar finery

Finally, steam the momos for 20 minutes. Make sure to give them room as they puff up.



Finally, ENJOY!


Now, I bet you're asking "How on earth was 4 sticks of butter not enough?" The answer is in that picture above. The filling is alike a paste, when it should be goopy from the melted butter. It tasted delicious but the filling was slightly too dry. I figure half again as much butter should do the trick.

Happy Losar to you all!