A teahouse of Lhasa [Photo/China Tibet Online]

Tsampa is the staple food of the Tibetan people and ranks first among the four treasures of Tibetan food, of which the rest three are Butter, tea as well as beef and mutton. Tsampa is like the parched wheat flour of the Han people, but in fact it is not. It is a milled powder of a parched highland barley grain.

Butter is an essential of Tibetan food. It is abstracted from the fat of milk of yaks or sheep, the Tibetan people live on it. Butter can moisten the digestive system and contains multiple vitamins. In the Tibetan area where the diet structure is relatively simple, it can meet various needs of the human body.

A vegetable market in the Barkhor Street of Lhasa [Photo/China Tibet Online]

Here we list some of the famous Tibetan recipes:

Sokham Bexe: a favorite recipe of Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama: Mix dough with some butter, stuff some minced meat into the flattened dough, and then fry it with butter.

Juema: blood saysage. Mix Tsampa with the fresh blood of yak or sheep, slat and wild leeks, and stuff the mixture into the cleaned intestines of yal or sheep. Then stew the sausage with water.

Drokpa Katsa: Stew the tripe, slice it, and then season it with some curry, fennel, monosodium glutamate and salt.

Lunggoi Katsa: Stew the sheep head, separate the mutton from the bone, and then season it with some curry, fennel, monosodium glutamate and salt.

Tu: chesse cake. Mix the dry cubic cheese with some butter, brown sugar and cold drinkable water into pastry, and then slice it.

The center of the Tibetan cuisine is Lhasa and Shigatse. Before the peaceful liberation in 1951, almost all Kuchenmeisters were concentrated in the manors of aristocrats, office buildings of bureaucrats and residences of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama in Lhasa and Shigatse, especially in Lhasa, the cuisine of which has become representative of the Tibetan food culture.

Highland barley wine is also a famous Tibetan beverage. [Photo/China Tibet Online]