Momos
From LabelingThoughts
momos are a type of steamed dumpling common in Tibet. In Shambhala they are often made for Shambhala Day.
Contents |
Recipes
- Phyllis Segura's blog has a recipe
- Recipe at VisitNepal.com
- Phyllis Segura's recipe for momos
- Phyllis Segura's photos of making momos
Also these notes:
Vegetarian
Dorothée writes, "Ka-ling, who is Khandro Tseyang's attendant, makes her vegetarian version something like this: Sauté onion and/or green onions, add to the sauté pan lots of greens such as bok choi or chard, wilt it all down. Add lots of oil and soy sauce. Maybe garlic (but she never puts ginger in hers, meat or no meat), and use this, once cooled, as the stuffing for veg momos."
Wheat free
Dorothee writes, "When we make momos the for Sakyong (who doesn't eat wheat), we use light spelt flour for the dough; it works beautifully! You can roll the dough especially thin. Very nice.
Gluten free
Sylvie writes, "You could certainly use rice flour for the dough. If you want, cut it with buckwheat flour or amaranth flour. Just mix it with water and maybe a real small amount of oil (canola) to increase the elasticity."
Stephanie also suggests a baked form with this pastry: "Now you wouldn't be able to steam or boil momos made with the pastry, but bake them in the oven and I'm pretty confident you'd be pleased. This recipe is from Everyday Grain Free Gourmet by Jodi Bager and Jenny Lass and is part of the Chicken Pot Pie recipe---- I highly reccomend these authors. All my clients love their stuff.
- Oven at 300 F
- Mix 3 cups of almond flour (finely ground almonds), 3/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/3 cup of melted butter (so it could also be any oil--except maybe extra virgin olive oil) and 1 egg until it forms a ball.
Roll to approiate thickness between 2 sheets of parchment or wax paper. Off you go. This is enough pastry for one 9-10 in pie crust."
Sauce: Tomato Achar
Goes great with momo's according to Cheryl: Tomato Achar - the spicy journey to your lips!
- 2 cups roasted tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1 tablespoon each garlic and ginger, minced
- 1 teaspoon each cumin, coriander powder
- 1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped
- 3 fresh red chilies, minced
- 1 tablespoon each mustard seeds, and mustard oil
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon salt or salt to taste
- 8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon green onion, finely chopped
Using a blender, blend all ingredients to form a smooth paste. Heat one tablespoon of mustard oil in a pan, add slices of garlic and fry till light brown. Add the paste, stir and serve chilled. You just made Tomato Achar. Now to make Achar of mangoes or cucumber follow similar recipe. To make achar more sour and spicy, add fresh lemon juice and chili.
Hot sauce
Tibetan hot sauce is available from a variety of sources, such as fire.com, khatsa.com, plus Samadhi Stores and Ziji in Boulder.
Khenpo Dorjee's
Dough - for momos and tibetan noodles (tukpa)
Dough needs to sit at least one hour before rolling/cooking so make first.
- Aprox 4 cups white flour
- Aprox 1 cup warm (not hot) milk or water (milk is "fancy")
- 1 egg
- large pinch baking soda
Mix soda and flour, make a well and crack in egg. mix this together and add in warm milk/water gradually, until it is dough - not sticky, crumbly or dry (so you may not need all the fluid or a bit more or more flour etc.)
cover and let sit one hour room temp.
Vegetarian Filling
- 1 onion
- handful of cabbage
- 1 clove garlic
- aprox 1/2 t. salt
- 1/4 of a bell pepper
- 1 potato peeled and boiled
- 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
- Olive oil for sauteing
- small amount cilantro and/or tamari
- some chopped chives
Chop VERY finely onion, cabbage, garlic, bell pepper. Chop boiled potato (if it is not boiled first you can chop it paper thin).
Sautee in olive oil the onion and garlic with salt. then add potato and pepper, then cabbage. Add the cheese and a little cilantro and/or tamarai, and chives. Remove from heat.
Meat Momo Filling
- 1 small onion
- 1 clove garlic
- generous amount of olive oil for sauteing
- 1/2 t salt
- 1 pound ground meat.
- chopped chives and some cilantro
Chop onion and garlic very fine. Saute in lots of olive oil, add salt. Then add 1 lb ground meat (beef pork or turkey). Chop up the meat with the onions and cook it part way (Tibetans fill the dumplings with raw meet but Khenpo Dorjee says it is safter if the meat is partially cooked but it won't taste good if it is all the way cooked.) But the partially cooked meat in a bowl but save the dirty pot for making the soup.
Making the momos and soup You need a thin rolling stick, not a rolling pin because you leave the middle of the dough balls unrolled so you only use one end of the stick going around the balls. Khenpo Dorjee whittled one for us from our yard, it is about the thickness of a sink pipe.
So you lightly flour a cutting board, cut your dough in 3rds, roll each 3rd into a tube about 1.5 inches in diameter and cut off 1 inch chuks of them. Save some dough for noodles! roll your chunks into thin circles with a thick center (awkward at first, good to be shown or experiment). Too thin they break, too thick they taste doughy. Hold one, fill with small amount of (either kind of) filling. To close, there are several methods, easiest for us was fluting top down onto bottom edge and making nice folds with the top, stretching and pulling as you go to seal it. They get fancier (and harder) from there, hardest being the circular ones you would serve a Rinpoche.
Stack several steaming baskets, oil the bottom of each basket so momos don't stick. layer the momos one layer only in each basket steam for 25 min, also test that the steam isn't sticky. Serve with tamari and soup.
The soup is made from broth or stock or boullon cooked with the left over cooking from teh meat, maybe some left over filling dropped in, cilantro, chives, and roll some left over dough really thin and slice into noodles and boil with soup.
Bhutanese side dish
This Bhutanese side dish goes great with momo's, according to Patricia:
- 1 small onion, chopped very fine
- 1clove garlic,also chopped very fine
- 1 and a half bell peppers chopped but not so small (not like for momos, more like small chunks)
- 1 cup grated cheese (colby, cheddar)
- 1/4 t. salt
- peeled potato boiled and chopped or if not boiled chopped paper thin
- 1/2 chopped tomato
- small amount chopped cilantro and chives.
- olive oil for fying
Heat oil, saute garlic and onion with salt until onion clear. Add chopped peppers, optional potato, tomato. Add cheese. then add cilantro and chopped chives and serve hot.
