Phagshapaफाग्शापा
⏱ Prep 15m🍳 Cook 60m🍽 Serves 4🌿 Non-veg
Video: IAM- Institute of Hotel Management (YouTube)
Phagshapa is Sikkim's answer to a weeknight dinner — strips of dried pork cooked low and slow with white radishes and dried chillies until the fat renders into the radish and the whole thing turns deeply savoury and warming. It is a Tibetan-Sikkimese dish, simple by design, that manages to taste far more complex than its short ingredient list suggests. Serve it with steamed rice and nothing else.
📍 Make it in Plano
This recipe is the same everywhere — but where you buy the ingredients and eat the dish is local to you.
Finding Desi spots near Plano…
Ingredients
- ▪dried pork strips — or cured pork belly400 g
- ▪white radish — mooli or daikon2 medium, cut into thick matchsticks
- ▪dried red chillies — Sikkim or standard dried5–8, whole
- ▪green chillies3, slit
- ▪garlic5 cloves, sliced
- ▪fresh ginger½-inch piece, sliced thin
- ▪spring onions — white and green parts3 stalks, chopped
- ▪mustard oil1 tbsp
- ▪saltto taste (pork is already salted — taste first)
- ▪water1 cup
🌍 Cooking abroad? Substitutions
- Dried pork from Sikkim or Bhutan is hard to find abroad. A close substitute is air-dried or cured pork belly from East Asian grocery stores (look for Chinese wind-dried pork belly or lap yuk). Smoked pork belly also works and adds a pleasant smokiness.
- Daikon radish (white radish) is widely available at Asian and South Asian grocery stores across North America. Regular turnips make a passable substitute — they take a similar time to cook and absorb flavour well.
- Mustard oil can be replaced with any neutral oil. Traditional Himalayan cooking uses mustard oil for its pungency; a few drops of toasted sesame oil added at the end is a different but fitting aromatic substitute.
Method
- 1If using hard dried pork strips, soak in cold water for 2 hours to rehydrate. Drain, then cut into 2-inch pieces. Cured pork belly needs no soaking — slice into strips.
- 2Heat oil in a heavy pot over medium heat until it just begins to smoke; swirl to cool slightly. Add dried chillies and fry 20 seconds.
- 3Add garlic, ginger, and the white part of spring onions; sauté 3 minutes.
- 4Add pork pieces. Fry 5–6 minutes, stirring, until the fat begins to render and the surfaces colour.
- 5Add radish matchsticks and green chillies; stir to combine. Add water.
- 6Bring to a boil, reduce to a low simmer, cover and cook 40–50 minutes until pork is very tender and the radish has absorbed the savoury pork fat.
- 7Taste and add salt only if needed. Garnish with spring onion greens. Serve immediately over plain steamed rice.
A Desi.Net original recipe · part of our Indian Cuisine library. Confirm details and adjust to taste.