tsampa (roasted barley flour)
Flour ground from roasted barley, the staple food of Tibet. It is already cooked and is eaten without further cooking.
Tsampa is flour made from barley, usually hulless barley, whose grains are roasted before milling. It tastes nutty and gently sweet, with a distinct toasted note, and is finer and drier than ordinary flour. Because roasting has already cooked it, it is not baked or boiled but kneaded with butter tea, milk or water, often with a little butter, into a pliable dough or eaten as a porridge. It can be found in organic and health food shops, in Tibetan or Nepali shops and by mail order, occasionally also in Asian grocers.
Substitute:
The closest substitute is ordinary barley flour toasted in a dry pan, stirring constantly, until golden and fragrant; it ends up a little less deep in flavour and slightly less fine. Untoasted flour is no substitute, because tsampa is eaten uncooked and raw flour is neither palatable nor suitable for that.