The Un-Apartment: And all I have are these Damn Nepalese Coins...

Dal-Bhat-Tarkari & Momo’s

So Nepalese coins don’t really have anything to do with this post, but I went to Nepal back in the summer of 2000 and I may admit that the There’s something about Mary line may have had a slight impact on my choosing to go there. While there, I was introduced to some fabulous cuisine that for some reason or another I never tried to re-produce here at home. Possibly because the first time I tried, I found very little on the internet in the way of useable recipes. It may also be because no matter how hard you try, the location is everything. A cup of Chai in my living room will NEVER taste the way it did when on the side of a cloud covered mountain, after having hiked for two hours, we had to stop for the monsoon rain and were treated to little metal cups of chai to warm us up. See, location is hard to reproduce and nothing will live up to that. But at least I could try to make the food.

We started with the dessert, Kheer (or rice pudding). This isn’t the European style of rice pudding, no eggs in other words. It’s simply rice made in milk with a LOT of sugar, cream and spices. We could have eaten it hot, but for convenience sake, made it ahead of time and chilled it for later.

Rachael stirring the Kheer

Kheer- almost done.

Now, anyone that has ever been to Nepal will know that there is one thing impossible to miss, the MoMo. Not sure where the name came from, but it is a delicious steamed dumpling, the kind sold by street vendors and restaurants alike. Unique to Nepal, it is one part of the cuisine that borrows more from the close proximity to China than it does India. While water buffalo meat wasn’t on-hand here in the states (it kinda tastes like beef, only tougher), we made due with a combination of pork and beef.

Momo filling

We cheated slightly and just used wrappers from the local Asian market instead of making them ourselves. I’ll tackle that one next time I think. Rachael and Brandy filled most of them so we could then steam them up.

Momo making teamwork!

Filled, before steaming

Thanks to Wendy’s Christmas gift of a basket steamer, we had no problem steaming them up and Josh and I still have a TON of leftovers as well!

For the main course, there was only one dish to make. Dal Bhat. It is the national dish of Nepal. This rice/lentil combination is eaten at least once a day. Dal is made from lentils and can vary from a soupy consistency to one more in line with porridge. Bhat is simply basmati rice. Tarkari is usually included in the combination as well. Essentially just curried meat and/or vegetables, Tarkari is a large part of Nepalese cuisine. I choose to make chicken Tarkari and add vegetables as well.

Wendy, chopping veggies for Tarkari

Tarkari cooking

Once everything was cooked, we sat down to plates of the rice, lentils and curried chicken. We also made Mango Lassi’s to drink. The yogurt/mango combination was wonderful! Next time I’ll need to add more green chili to the Tarkari though as it wasn’t as spicy as it could have been.

Some of the ingredients I picked up at the Indian Grocery

After dinner, we boiled up a large pot of Chai and enjoyed it with the chilled Kheer. In all, I’d say the foray into Nepali food was a success and will be repeated. After all, what else am I going to do with a whole liter of mustard oil?! Now if only I could remember where I did put those damn Nepalese coins….