A short guide
What is Balti food?
It is the everyday cooking of Baltistan, in the far north of Pakistan, and it is probably not what you are expecting.
It is not spicy
This surprises almost everyone. Balti cooking is mild, nutty and savoury, built on wheat, barley, buckwheat, walnut and apricot rather than chilli and garam masala. If you have come expecting Punjabi heat, expect something else entirely.
Almost nothing comes from outside the valley
Apricot oil pressed from local fruit, walnuts from the orchard, herbs gathered above the villages, barley and buckwheat grown at altitude. The cuisine exists because these are the things that will grow at 2,200 metres.
It is closer to Tibet than to Lahore
Baltistan sits at the western edge of the Tibetan cultural world, and its food shows it: steamed dumplings, salted butter tea, barley as a staple. The Balti language is Tibetan in origin, and so are many of the dish names.
This is not the balti you may be thinking of
In Britain, a 'balti' is a curry stir-fried in a thin steel bowl, invented in Birmingham in the 1970s. It is a fine thing, but it has almost nothing to do with Baltistan.
The likeliest explanation is that the name came from the pot, not the place. Balti is simply a word for bucket. One food historian has written that the food of Baltistan 'bears no resemblance' to the dish sold under that name in the UK.
Balti food, as eaten in Balti homes, is what you will find on our table: dumplings, hand-cut noodles, buckwheat, walnut paste and apricot oil.
The dishes
Many Balti dish names are simply descriptions. Marzan is mar (oil) and zan (buckwheat dough). Payu cha is payu (salt) and cha (tea). The name tells you the recipe.
On our menu
- Mamtu
- Dumplings steamed in a tiered pot, filled with minced meat, onion and garlic. Visitors often call them momos.
- Balay
- Hand-cut noodles in a thick broth, eaten to keep warm. Tras balay is made with green mountain herbs; rdung balay with ground barley.
- Marzanmar (oil) + zan (buckwheat dough)
- Buckwheat dough served in a mound with a well of pure apricot oil at its centre. Winter food, and unique to Baltistan and Tibet.
- Prapu
- Cooked wheat with moskot, which is walnut ground to a paste with mint and herbs from the high plateau.
- Payu chapayu (salt) + cha (tea)
- Salted butter tea, pink from long brewing. The everyday drink of the mountains.
Also eaten in Baltistan
Part of the cuisine, but not on our menu, so you know what to look for elsewhere in the valley.
- Khurba
- The everyday Balti bread. Dry, flat, and part of almost every meal.
- Azoq
- The Balti paratha, eaten with salt tea at Eid and on festival days.
- Gyal
- Buckwheat cakes cooked on an iron plate over a wood fire, served with honey or apricot jam. Smoky.
- Chhurpi
- Dense, rich cheese made from yak milk.
Taste it properly
The platters are the easiest way in. A little of everything, for two.
Skardu, Gilgit-Baltistan