Village Recipe · Nine-Ingredient Chili Paste
Ezey Nyergu
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Its name literally counts its own ingredients — 'nyergu' means nine, and the Nobgang village recipe uses exactly that many, right down to a sour, stream-side herb that lends a faint fishy note despite containing no fish at all.
Dried red chilies are roasted and pounded together with eight other ingredients, including a sour, stream-side plant called genche la, into a thick, fragrant paste. It's a specialty of Nobgang village in Punakha, traditionally packed in banana leaves and passed down as a closely guarded family recipe.
Why it's made this way: Nobgang cooks describe the recipe as knowledge handed down through generations of mothers in the village, tying this particular chili paste to one Punakha community rather than to Bhutan's chili culture in general.
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