Making Momos

Norbu Tshering, his wife, Yangchen, and their two sons live across the Punatsangchhu (the river created by the conjoined Mo Chhu and Po Chhus) in a somewhat traditional Bhutanese house Norbu's parents built for them when they got married.  To describe the house as a "traditional Bhutanese house" is stating the obvious: to preserve Bhutanese culture, all houses are built with the fancifully painted dentils and Moorish-looking windows one sees in all the photos of Bhutan.  What sets Norbu's house apart from a Bhutanese farmhouse is that it does not have a ground floor that was originally designed to house the livestock or an outdoor kitchen, nor does it have the wooden shutters and the slanted rammed earth walls that characterize the hand-crafted farmhouses of Bhutan (these features of the Bhutanese farmhouse--still the most common form of architecture here--are meant to provide stability to the building; the wooden shutters are not like those in the west that fold in on themselves.  Instead, they are solid boards that slide open, and, when shut, keep out the dust, heat, rain and insects while also helping to prevent the walls from cracking, a hazard of mud walls.  The inward cant performs the same function).  Norbu is a fellow English teacher and his wife is a middle school teacher, and they are, in their tastes and behaviors, as urbane as a Bhutanese couple can get without living in Thimphu--their only livestock is a cat named Sando. It is my good fortune that Norbu is a master momo maker and that he invited me over to his house to learn the craft.

There is a variety of momos--beef, chicken, pork, cabbage and cheese.  Knowing I would want vegetarian momos, Norbu asked me to bring a kilo of cabbage and a kilo of maida, the highly processed wheat flour from India that is preferred for its smooth texture.  It was the warmest and sunniest afternoon I've experienced since arriving in Punakha, and I had walked the three miles from Khuruthang to Norbu's, so the chilled Druk 11000 beer (brewed in Bhutan) that Norbu poured me when I arrived slaked my considerable thirst.  

On a hot day it aint bad.  The lager is better.

We sat out on his deck, the imposing and magisterial dzong across the river below, and chatted before Norbu gave me the task of mincing the kilo of cabbage while he mixed the dough for momos.

In Bhutan, there is no such thing as a measuring cup or spoons, so everything is done by eye and feel.  As I sat on a low bench in Norbu's kitchen chopping cabbage, he, with a little help from his son Gephel, mixed what looked like a cup and a half or two cups of maida with perhaps a cup of water that he poured into a well he made in the center of the flour.  To this he added a teaspoon or so of baking powder and kneaded the dough until it was somewhat stiff and only slightly sticky.  

Norbu and Gephel mixing momo stuffing

As he worked, I added several small chopped red onions and salt to the cabbage, and then cut some of the ubiquitous Amul cheese (like American cheese) into small cubes and added that to my mixture, an exorbitant and tasty--but unnecessary--addition.  

Norbu divided the dough into balls about the diameter of a quarter.  These he rolled out onto a small round wooden board with feet designed for this purpose onto which he had put a dusting of flour to keep the dough from sticking.  Each ball made a disc about four inches around and about a sixteenth of an inch thick.  Into each of these he put about a tablespoon of the cabbage mixture, deftly and quickly shaping the dough into crescents with artfully pinched edges.  I tried to follow his lead and make a few myself, but my Ukrainian blood must be thin: my efforts created lumpy wads that didn't stay pinched.  I took over rolling out the dough while he did the filling and shaping.

Rolling out the dough

While we worked, a momo steamer was heating up.  Momo steamers, I assume, can be used to make Chinese buns and any number of other steamed foods and can probably be purchased in the States in any large Asian market.  Comprised of a deep metal pot with two layers of steamer trays and a lid, one simply fills each layer with prepared momos, puts the lid on, and then waits until the dough is just slightly sticky to the touch.  This takes about seven to ten minutes during which time the filling is also steamed, melting the cheese and softening the cabbage and onions.  Yum.

Filling momos

Because in my blog I had said I could eat 15 momos, Norbu insisted that I eat 15 of our momos, so as they came out of the steamer they were piled on a plate with some store-bought ezzay.  Delicious, hot and filling, I tucked into the heap on my plate.  Norbu continued to make and steam them as I ate one after the other.  Just as I was starting on my second plate, Yangchen came home and, after feeding the baby who had been sleeping the entire afternoon, made ezzay from scratch with red chili powder, grated red onions, cilantro, a little warmed oil, and salt (this is, essentially, salsa, and would be fabulous on black beans or tortilla chips).  

Pinching it closed

One completed!

Two styles in the steamer

Ready for the steamer

It took quite a while to use up all the dough and all the filling; from start to finish, I think it took us three hours.  But the recipe made enough momos for a meal for at least six people, unless one of the guests happens to be me!

The first four of fifteen!