Ema datshi ( dz, ཨེ་མ་དར་ཚིལ་; Wylie: ) is among the most famous dishes in

Bhutanese cuisine Bhutanese cuisine ( Dzongkha: འབྲུག་ཟས་; Wylie: ''brug-zas'') employs much red rice (like brown rice in texture, but with a nutty taste, the only variety of rice that grows at high altitudes), buckwheat, and increasingly ma ...

, recognized as a national dish of

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

. It is made from hot

chili pepper Chili peppers (also chile, chile pepper, chilli pepper, or chilli), from Nahuatl '' chīlli'' (), are varieties of the berry-fruit of plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for ...

s and

cheese Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During productio ...

; "ema" means "chili" and "datshi" means "cheese" in the

Dzongkha Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script. The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 ...

language of Bhutan. Different varieties of chilies may be used: green chili, red chili, or white chili (green chili washed in hot water and sun-dried), which may be dried or fresh. The chilies are called "sha ema" which is a ''

Capsicum annuum ''Capsicum annuum'' is a species of the plant genus ''Capsicum'' native to southern North America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. This species is the most common and extensively cultivated of the five domesticated capsicums. The spec ...

'' cultivar, a form of pepper much like

cayenne Cayenne (; ; gcr, Kayenn) is the capital city of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic coast. The city's m ...

poblano The poblano ('' Capsicum annuum'') is a mild chili pepper originating in the state of Puebla, Mexico. Dried, it is called ancho or chile ancho, from the Spanish word ''ancho'' ("wide"). Stuffed fresh and roasted it is popular in '' chiles re ...

ancho The poblano (''Capsicum annuum'') is a mild chili pepper originating in the state of Puebla, Mexico. Dried, it is called ancho or chile ancho, from the Spanish word ''ancho'' ("wide"). Stuffed fresh and roasted it is popular in '' chiles relle ...

, or

Anaheim Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most ...

. The cheese in ema datshi is homemade from the curd of cow or

yak The domestic yak (''Bos grunniens''), also known as the Tartary ox, grunting ox or hairy cattle, is a species of long-haired domesticated cattle found throughout the Himalayan region of the Indian subcontinent, the Tibetan Plateau, Kachin S ...

's milk. In the process, the fat is removed from the curd to make butter, and the remaining curd without fat is used to make the cheese. After the cheese is made, a watery liquid is left over, which is used as a soup that can be taken with rice. No part of the curd is wasted.

Kewa datshi

A related dish is called ''kewa datshi'' which substitutes the chilis with potatoes. Likewise, any kind of datshi can be made using any vegetable or meat products. If bean is substituted for chili, it is called bean (semchum) datshi. If mushrooms are substituted, it is called mushroom (shamu) datshi. Beef datshi is another well-known variation.

Kewa datshi

References

Further reading