Juma (ཇུམ)
Bhutanese sausage made with minced meat, blood, rice flour, and Sichuan pepper (thingay). The word designates both the intestine and the sausage in Dzongkha.
| Fresh pig’s or ox blood | 300 ml |
| Minced pork or beef | 400 g |
| Animal fat, diced | 100 g |
| Rice or wheat flour | 80 g |
| Fine salt | 15 g |
| Thingay (Bhutanese Sichuan pepper), ground | 4 g |
| Dried red chilli flakes | 5 g |
| Garlic, crushed | 10 g |
| Hog or beef casing (Ø 32–36 mm) | — |
- Mixing: Combine the flour, the salt, the chilli flakes, the diced fat, the minced meat and the thingay in a bowl. Pour in the blood, whisking gradually until a homogeneous, semi-liquid paste forms.
- Stuffing: Rinse the casings. Fill using a funnel, without packing too tightly. Tie the ends.
- Poaching: Plunge into boiling water for 15 to 20 minutes. Prick with a toothpick to release the air bubbles.
- Drying: Dry by hanging in a cool place overnight. In cold weather, the drying can be prolonged.
- Storage: Refrigerate and eat within the week, or freeze.
- Final cooking: Slice into rounds or lengths. Pan-fry or deep-fry in oil until golden and crisp. Variant: fry with onions, tomatoes and green chillies.
- Serving: Serve with Bhutanese red rice, ema datshi (chilli with cheese) and ezay (a chilli sauce). Traditionally accompanies ara (the local rice liquor).
The juma is Bhutan's sausage. The word designates both the intestine and the sausage in Dzongkha. Its composition (minced meat, blood, rice or wheat flour, fat, thingay) places it in the continuum of the Himalayan blood sausages that cross Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim and Ladakh, each with its own spices and grains, all bound by the same logic of the complete use of the animal slaughtered at altitude.
The thingay, Bhutanese Sichuan pepper, is the most distinctive spice of the country’s cooking. The first sensation on the palate is its citrus tingling, followed by the heat of the dried red chilli, two constants of Bhutanese cooking, reputed to be one of the spiciest in the world. The presence of blood raises the same Buddhist question as the Tibetan gyurma: the Bhutanese charcuterie tradition belongs to the Buddhist accommodation of meat consumption, in which each slaughter, morally costly, must be made to feed for as long as possible.
What separates the juma from the Nepali gyuma or the Tibetan gyurma is the use of rice or wheat flour rather than tsampa, the thingay as a dominant spice and a higher chilli intensity. The poaching is also shorter (15 to 20 minutes), followed by an overnight drying, then a final cooking, pan-fried or deep-fried.
It is essentially prepared in rural households at festival time.
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