Julie Kleeman met Tibetan chef Yeshi Jampa in 2009 in the Indian town of Dharamsala, which lies at the edge of the Himalayas. Together they have brought Tibetan food (including the hugely popular momo dumplings) to wider attention in the UK through popups, festivals and, since 2020, a restaurant in Oxford.
Julie and Yeshi’s first cookbook, Taste Tibet, was published on March 17, 2022 and is available to access in full on ckbk, the new digital subscription service for recipe and menu development.
The founder of ckbk, Matt Cockerill, caught up with the authors to get the inside info on yaks, momos, and butter tea.
Q: Yak meat and milk are not so easy to come by in the UK, but you mention that beef is fine as a substitute. How does yak meat compare? Have you tried UK-raised yak meat?
Yak meat has a flavour profile similar to lean beef or buffalo. It’s usually cured and air-dried for use over long periods of time. It can be enjoyed as a raw snack in this form, or added to soups and stews. Before cooking it is chewy in the mouth initially, before melting away very quickly.
We haven’t tried UK-raised yak meat. The monks at a monastery in southern Scotland keep a few yaks in the grounds, but when we visited, they didn’t look like they were thriving – the conditions in the UK are just too damp. [There is, in fact, one yak farm in the UK offering Yak meat online!]
Q: Any other tips on sourcing ingredients? Tsampa, the Tibetan staple made from ground dry-roasted barley, sounds interesting. Does regular pearl barley produce authentic Tsampa?
Yes. This is what we use at home, and it works well. Yeshi likes brown barley grains and we have been able to source these in the UK too, but there’s no need to look beyond pearl barley in your local supermarket if you’re planning to have a go. All the ingredients used in the book’s recipes are available either at your local supermarket or in a nearby Chinese or Indian supermarket, if there is one local to you. Otherwise, you can find them online.
Q: When you first started, you focused on momos, (Tibetan Dumplings). What are other favourites in the restaurant that people keep coming back for?
Momos are the food that everyone talks about. They are our signature dish. But the one that they secretly can’t get enough of is the Taste Tibet Famous Chicken Curry. This is the festival-goer’s cure-all, and every Oxford customer’s guilty pleasure. I say guilty because many of our customers are veggie, but while they’ll order away our Heavenly Vegan Momos, they can’t leave the building without sneaking in at least one portion of our Famous Chicken Curry. All of this plus some Taste Tibet Sepen (hot chilli dip). This is Yeshi’s legendary spicy condiment, a great pairing for momos and curry alike. We have this in jars for takeaway, and they fly off the shelves.
You can read ckbk’s full interview with the team at Taste Tibet here. If you’re looking to find more inspiration with idiosyncratic, off-the-beaten-path recipes across 100 world cuisines, your membership to Hospitality Rewards gives you 25% off ckbk subscription. It’s a whole new way to experience cookbooks.
