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EveryCow

Curd and fermented milk

Chhurpi

Curd from churned yak, dzomo or cow buttermilk, eaten soft or pressed and dried into one of the hardest foods of the Himalaya.

Chhurpi is made from the buttermilk left after butter is churned from yak, dzomo or cow milk. The buttermilk is boiled until it curdles and the curd is drained. Soft chhurpi is eaten fresh in curries and pickles. Hard chhurpi is pressed, cut into small blocks and dried for weeks over smoke or in the cold air until it is like stone, then chewed slowly for hours.

What goes in

Buttermilk: 67%67%Heat: 13%13%Smoke or cold air: 20%20%3parts
  • Buttermilk1067%, Left after churning butter.
  • Heat213%, Boils out the curd.
  • Smoke or cold air320%, Dries hard chhurpi for weeks.

Rough parts by weight. The ring shows each input's share of the product.

Made step by step

Each drawing shows the operation for that step. Quantities and timings differ from house to house and herd to herd; this is one traditional way, in outline.

  1. Step 1: Milk Milk the yak, dzomo or cow and churn the milk or curd for butter.
  2. Step 2: Boil Boil the buttermilk until the curd separates.
  3. Step 3: Strain Drain the curd in a cloth to make soft chhurpi.
  4. Step 4: Shape For hard chhurpi, press it, cut it into blocks and thread them on strings.
  5. Step 5: Dry Dry the blocks over smoke or in cold air for weeks.
  6. Buttermilk: 67%67%Heat: 13%13%Smoke or cold air: 20%20%
    Finished Chhurpi, by share.

Herders of the high pastures

Chhurpi belongs to the yak herders and cattle keepers of Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling, Bhutan and Tibet. In Bhutan it is datshi, the cheese of ema datshi. Hard chhurpi keeps for a very long time and was carried on journeys over the passes. Small blocks are threaded on strings and sold in markets across the eastern Himalaya.

Nothing wasted

Chhurpi is the second product of the churn: butter goes to tea and lamps, and the buttermilk becomes cheese. The whey left from chhurpi is drunk or fed to animals. Hard chhurpi has found a new market abroad as a chew for dogs, a trade that has brought cash to some herding villages.

Where it is used

Ema datshi and curriesChewed on journeysMarket strings

The breeds behind it

YakThe female dri gives rich milk for butter.DzoYak and cow hybrid; the female dzomo is milked.

Also part of it, and being written: Siri cattle (Hill cattle of Sikkim, Darjeeling and Bhutan.), Achham cattle (Dwarf hill cattle of western Nepal.).

More on EveryCow

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Sources and further reading

About this page

Original text and drawings by the EveryCow desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. The shares are a rough, illustrative ratio, not a recipe: every family and dairy makes it differently. If we have something wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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