Dish for feast days and guests (mög-mög)
Momos, Tibetan Steamed Dumplings
FestiveReconstruction🧂 🍄moyen1 h 15
Small dumplings of unleavened dough, filled with minced meat seasoned with onion and ginger, hand-pleated and steamed. A quintessential sharing dish, they are made by the family before special occasions.
Why this dish? Alexandra stayed for years on the borders of Tibet, in Sikkim and in monasteries: momos, stuffed dumplings cooked by steaming, are the dish shared on feast days and when receiving a distinguished traveler like her.
When a monastery did me the honor of hosting me, they would prepare these small dumplings the Tibetans call mög-mög. The whole household joined in, folding the dough around a meat filling seasoned with onion and ginger, then stacking them in a basket over boiling water. I was taught to pinch the dough into nice pleats to trap the juice — and it is that hot juice that makes all the delight. I keep the memory of warm evenings, crouched near the hearth, far from the formal dinners of Paris.
Ingredients
- •Barley or wheat flour — for the dough (wrapper)
- •Minced yak or mutton — a good portion (filling)
- •Onion — one, minced (aromatic)
- •Fresh ginger — a piece, grated (aromatic)
- •Melted yak butter — a little (moistness of filling)
- •Salt — to taste (seasoning)
How it was made : The momo, likely from Nepal and Himalayan trade routes, was cooked in bamboo or copper steamers placed over the hearth pot. The filling varied by altitude: meat in pastoral regions, cheese or vegetables elsewhere. It was made only for guests and festivities, as meat was precious.
Sources : Rinjing Dorje, Food in Tibetan Life, Prospect Books, 1985