by Matt

Federica shares her recipe.

Apologies to any hard-line traditionalists, but Yak butter is unfortunately impossible to find in Europe and most other places, I presume, so I’m afraid this is a poor substitute. I am unfortunately unable to vouch for how authentic the flavour is, but I’m informed by a good friend who has visited Nepal that it’s actually not too bad!

Put a small pan with a mugful of cold water on the stove. Add a good quality ordinary black tea bag (Lipton tea is apparently suitable, although you could experiment with Lapsang Souchong, which is quite strong) or a heaped teaspoonful of black tea.

Bring to the boil and simmer for one minute. Remove the teabag, or drain off the tea leaves. Put the tea back into the pan (if you’ve strained tea leaves out).

Add a sprinkling of salt (about an eighth of a teaspoon) and enough full-cream milk to give you a milky brew. Again, if you can use goat’s milk it is so much the better. If you can’t get full cream milk, add the milk you have, plus a teaspoonful of cream.

Stir. Place the lot into a blender. Make sure it’s still good and hot. Start to whiz it, and add a heaped teaspoonful of ghee. Keep whizzing until all the butter is melted, and the tea frothy.

Pour into a heated mug (you can heat it by pouring some boiling water into it) and drink.

In time, you can adjust the salt to taste. I like mine quite salty (and buttery) because I can soak up the dregs of butter with my Tsampa or Tibetan roasted barley flour.

Posted Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 2:43 pm under Recipes. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.