High Country Cooking: Food From a Tibetan Monastery

Soaring travel costs may keep some people at home, but not Betty Jung. She financed a year in Asia with $5,000, saved $1,000 from the amount she had budgeted for high-priced Japan and is off again this month for another low-cost year.

Jung, a Chinese-American from Fresno, trims expenses by staying in cheap guest houses and dorms, traveling by bus and train and eating on the streets and in markets and hole-in-the-wall cafes. Her travels may be rigorous, but Jung doesn’t care. She has a goal: to learn as much as possible about Asian cooking.

What she did not expect was to turn almost immediately into a cookbook author. In “The Kopan Cookbook” (Chronicle Books: $9.95), Jung writes about a rare topic--Tibetan vegetarian food. The book is based on her stay at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Nepal. Jung went there to study Buddhist meditation but became fascinated with the food and worked her way into the kitchen. That was a considerable feat; the Tibetan head cook did not want a foreign woman on the premises. “I was set on doing it,” Jung said. “I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”

Once installed, Jung rolled out hundreds of chapatis , helped stir the soups that bubbled in massive pots--and choked on the smoke from the wood-burning earthen stoves. The kitchen bustled into action about 6 in the morning, and Jung came in shortly afterward to work on meals for seldom less than 150 Tibetan and Sherpa lamas, monks, nuns and visiting students. After three weeks, she had enough material for a little recipe book that would be sold at the monastery as a fund-raiser.

A modest edition of 400 copies was eventually printed in Katmandu, but by that time, Jung was in Seoul, Korea, teaching English to raise more travel money. “When I saw my little cookbook in print, I was thrilled,” she said. Jung sold all but one of the 40 copies that were allotted to her. When she returned to California, she submitted that copy to several publishers, but none were interested. Then she called a friend who worked in publishing. The result is a charming small volume of 40 recipes and an introduction in which Jung describes her experiences at the monastery.

The recipes include wonderful nourishing soups such as potato and tofu, spiced up with ginger, turmeric, chili powder and the special masala (spice mixture) made at Kopan. An omelet sandwich substitutes chapatis for bread, and a tostada has a chapati as the base. Jung insists that Kopan’s red pulau is one of the best fried-rice dishes she has tasted--and she’s eaten a lot of them. Raisins, cashews, coconut, mixed vegetables, cardamom and other spices make it sumptuous. But no dish is accorded more honors than the momo , the stuffed dumpling that amounts to a Tibetan national dish. Jung suggests several fillings and tells how to make the wrappers and an intriguing spicy tomato sauce. Beverages include the unique buttery tea that shocks Western palates but must be a great warm-up in high, cold country.

Some alteration in ingredients is necessary. Jung suggests replacing the yak cheese that Tibetans use with Swiss, jack or mozzarella. And one might have to forgo Indian tomato red powder, which colors pakoras , and the red pulau , unless an Indian shop is handy.

The following potato soup should be seasoned with the special Kopan masala, but if you don’t feel like grinding spices in quantity, ready-made Indian garam masala is a convenient replacement.

POTATO SOUP

(From “The Kopan Cookbook”)

1/4 cup butter

1 tablespoon minced ginger root

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 cup diced red onion

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon Kopan Masala

3 cups mashed potato

4 cups water

1 cup diced tofu

1 cup spinach leaves, chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 tablespoons chopped green onion

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Melt butter in large saucepan over medium heat. Add ginger, garlic and onion and stir-fry over medium to medium-high heat for 1/2 to 1 minute. Add turmeric, chili powder and masala. Stir-fry 1/2 minute longer. Add potato and mix. Cook and stir 3 minutes. Add water 1 cup at time, stirring constantly with wire whisk to prevent lumps from forming.

Stir until mixture is smooth. Add tofu and spinach. Mix well and bring to boil. Add vinegar, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Simmer 5 minutes. If soup is too thick, add water. Add green onions and cilantro and mix well. Makes about 8 cups.

Kopan Masala

1/3 cup coriander seeds

1/4 cup cumin seeds

10 black cardamom pods, peeled

15 green cardamom pods, peeled

25 cloves

2 cinnamon sticks, broken up

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

Combine coriander, cumin, black and green cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns and nutmeg and grind finely, but not to powder, with mortar and pestle, rolling pin, coffee grinder or food processor. Store in airtight jar. Makes about 1/2 cup.