Momos are quite a trend these days. These delicious dumplings momos are usually steamed though sometimes they are fried or steam-fried. Made with a refined flour dough, momos are filled with an assortment of fillings ranging from vegetarian to non-vegetarian often served with a dipping sauce or pickles. This vegetarian momo recipe uses a delicious assortment of mixed vegetables as the filling and non-vegetarians use beef which replaces mushrooms and tofu. But the most common and possibly everyone’s favorites has to be the good old way- steaming hot buff momos, right out of the steamer, doused in lip-smacking pickles. Here go steam momos but you can easily go one step ahead and pan fry or even deep-fry them.
The Dough
First of all, make the dough.
If you want to make momo dough for four peoples, use about 2 cups of wheat flour and somewhere between ¾ cups and 1 cup of water. The amount will depend on your particular flour (You do not have to be exact about the measurements, we never are)
Mix the flour and water very well by hand and keep adding water until the dough is flexible.
Now leave your dough in the pot with the lid on while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
You should not let the dough dry out, or it will be hard to work with.
The Filling
We make momos with either meat or vegetables. We usually use beef or just vegetables like mushrooms and tofu for vegetarians.
For vegetable momo filling
Chop all the ingredients into very, very small pieces and mix them:
- Two onions
- Two inches fresh ginger
- One pound of cabbage
- One pound tofu
- One-quarter pound of dark mushrooms
- Two or three cloves of garlic
- Four-five tablespoons of soy sauce
- ½ tablespoon of salt
- Three-four small dried red chilies
- ½ tablespoon cumin powder
- ¼ tablespoon of turmeric powder
For meat momos filling, add:
One pound of ground beef. This beef replaces the mushroom and tofu in the vegetable recipe.
(If you are making meat momos with ground beef, you may need to use your hands to mix it up.)
Shaping the Momos
When your dough and filling are both ready, it is time for the tricky part of making the dumpling shapes.
For this, place the dough on a chopping board and use a rolling pin to roll it out quite thinly. (It should be thick so as to keep it from breaking and leaking out all the juice and adequately thin, so as to not have the wrap overpower the taste of filling inside.)
After you have rolled out the dough, you will need to cut it into little circles for each momo.
The easiest way to do this is to turn a small cup or glass upside down to cut out circles about the size of the palm of your hand. (That way you do not have to worry about making good circles)
Now that you have a small, flat, circular piece of dough, you are ready to add filling and make the momo shapes.
Then, you will need to put one circle of dough in your left hand and add a tablespoonful of filling in the center of the dough.
With your right hand, begin to pinch much dough in the first pinch- just enough to make a small fold.
Now you will have a little piece of dough pinched together, and you should continue pinching around the circle little by little, keeping your thumb in place and pinching it down to original fold/pinch held by your thumb.
Make sure you close the hole on the top of the momo. That way you don’t lose the juicy part of the momo.
Steaming the Momo
Finally, you should boil water in a large steamer. Oil the steamer surface lightly before putting the momos in, so they won’t stick to the metal, then place as many as you can without touching each other.
Add momos after the water is boiled.
Steam the momos for about 10 minutes, then serve them hot, with pickle or soy sauce.
Finally, we are ready to eat. Hold the momo down with the fork by applying pressure through the index finger and dip in the lip-smacking pickle. (Yum!! have the taste of the juicy stuff, full of meat with pickles. Delicious!!!)
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