Balep Korkum/Tibetan Flatbread/Tibet Monastery Bread

You might have noticed that i have kick started a month of blogging marathon since yesterday and the theme for this month’s Mega marathon is A-Z International Flatbreads. Obviously after an Egyptioan bread,my today’s post goes to Tibet, which is an autonomous region of China.  And Tibet is a traditional and historical region of Centrel Asia. Tibet is the highest region on Earth. With Lhasa as capital, Tibet is well known for Dalai Lama, the spiritual leaders of Tibetan people. Tibet cuisine is not that much well known for me, hence i want to discover this cuisine. To kick start my culinary experience with this cuisine, i tried my hands with a flatbread. Balep Korkum is a Central Tibetan style bread which is a flatbread. Tibetans makes many kinds of bread and each areas have their own unique style of breads. But Balep Korkum is one of the easiest flatbread you can make easily at home with usual ingredients you can find in your pantry. Round and quite easy, this flatbread is definitely a simple dish to prepare if you want to make something quick as a bread to serve along with your favourite sauces or curries.

In Tibet, these days, balep korkun is almost exclusively white bread. Though traditionally, in the days before more modern milling machinery, they would have been prepared with whole wheat or barley. In Lhasa, balep korkun is sold either sweet or plain. The sweet versions, which carry a small red mark, are made with purang, which ressembles quite like the concentrated sugar cane juice as much as like Indian jaggery. In my case, i sticked completely with whole wheat flour, hence my Balep korkum got the prefect rustic texture. And obviously i served this pan fried Tibetan flatbread with an Indian spicy side dish to please our tastebuds. This bread stays prefect for two days in room temperature. However we had this bread even for our breakfast with some salted butter and jam after toasting them.

Recipe Source: Here
2cups Whole wheat flour
1tbsp Baking powder
Water as per need
Salt

Take the flour, baking powder, salt in a bowl, add gradually water and knead everything as smooth and soft dough.

Divide the dough into 5-6 balls and keep them aside for half an hour.

Roll each ball as bit thick round discs and keep aside.

Meanwhile heat a frying pan on high flame, once its hot, put the flame as medium and drop the rolled bread to the pan, cover with a lid.

Cook for 10-15minutes and flip the bread, cook on the other sides until both sides of the bread turns golden brown.

If you want to grease the frying pan, dont hesitate a second to add a dollop of butter or drizzle some oil for cooking the breads.

Serve warm with butter, jam or else with spicy side dishes.