Mongolian cuisine
Suutei tsai
Сүүтэй цай
Mongolian salted milk tea with butter, boiled rather than brewed.
- Prep
- 5 min
- Cook
- 25 min
- Total
- 30 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
Ingredients
- Green tea — brick tea if possible20 g
- Water1 l
- Milk700 ml
- Butter40 g
- Salt1 tsp
- Toasted flour — optional2 tbsp
Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.
Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.
Method
- 1
Break up the brick tea and cover it with a litre of cold water in a pot.
5 min
- 2
Bring it to the boil and cook five minutes, until the liquor darkens.
8 min
- 3
Pour in the milk and bring it back to the boil, watching that it does not run over.
8 min
- 4
Salt it and cook five minutes more over a low heat.
6 min
- 5
Ladle the tea up and pour it back from a height a dozen times.
5 min
- 6
Add the butter and stir until it disappears.
3 min
- 7
Strain it into bowls and serve it hot, with toasted flour if you like.
5 min
About the dish
The tea is boiled in water with milk rather than brewed with hot water. Boiling draws out of green brick tea what an infusion never reaches.
Salt is obligatory and there is no sugar. For a Mongolian this is not tea with dessert but food: with butter and flour it stands in for breakfast.
The finished tea is ladled up and poured back from a height a dozen times. That aerates it and evens out the flavour.
Worth knowing
- — Salt to taste, starting low. Over-salted tea cannot be fixed; under-salted takes a second to correct.
- — Use full-fat milk. On skimmed, suutei tsai comes out watery and the butter will not bind with it.
- — Brick tea can be replaced with ordinary green leaf, but the flavour comes out milder and without the smoky note. That is a fair substitution.
Nutrition
Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.
- Calories
- 140 kcal
- Protein
- 5 g
- Fat
- 9 g
- Carbs
- 8 g