Bhutan's signature pork dish — thick-cut pork belly simmered with dried red chillies, radish, and spinach in a stripped-back broth with no thickeners and no compromise on heat. One of the spiciest national dishes on earth.
Bhutan is a country that takes chillies seriously. Where most of the world uses chilli as a seasoning — an accent, a modifier — Bhutanese cooking uses it as a vegetable. Ema datshi (chilli and cheese) is the national dish. Phaksha paa runs a close second. In both cases, the chilli is not background but foreground, not heat for the sake of it but flavour that happens to burn. Phaksha paa means "fresh pork" in Dzongkha, the national language, though the name is slightly misleading today — the recipe traditionally used sun-dried pork strips hung over the kitchen fire, which gave the meat a smoke that fresh pork lacks. Most versions cooked in Bhutanese homes today use fresh pork belly, which provides sufficient fat to compensate. The drying tradition persists in rural areas, where pigs are slaughtered in autumn and the preserved meat carries families through the high-altitude winter. The dried red chillies used in phaksha paa are the elongated, medium-heat variety specific to Bhutanese mountain agriculture. They are not the scorching small chillies of Thai cooking or the smoky anchos of Mexico — they are their own thing: slightly sweet when rehydrated, with a clean, direct heat that builds through a meal rather than hitting immediately. Bhutanese people eat quantities of these chillies that would alarm most visitors. The white radish (daikon) adds a mild, slightly bitter counterpoint that keeps the dish from becoming monotonous. Phaksha paa is winter food — warming, fatty, built for altitude. At 2,300 metres, Thimphu's winters are cold enough to make a Bhutanese want pork belly and fire.
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