Vegetable Momos / Vegetable Steamed Dumplings

A training program during the early years of my career took me to Chennai with an all girls team. It was 4 days of absolute fun. We used to wait for the training to get over so that we could eat out, roam around and shop like mad women!! And each evening we accomplished our tasks on our checklist. One night after loads of street shopping, 3 of us got into a very plush Chinese restaurant with mighty hunger pangs. While flipping through the menu I got rather fascinated by reading the name MOMO's which was then a new thing to my ears and stomach!! A friend of mine who belongs to Delhi educated me that it is a very famous starter among Nepalise and Tibetans and thus popular in Delhi and one must try tasting it. And we went ahead and ordered it and it was bliss for me after that. Right from the appearance to the smell to the texture to the taste it just made me fall in love with Momo.


It has been quite a while since I have been wanting to try making momos at home but never had the courage to try them. Yesterday while just browsing the net I thought of giving a search for the recipe for vegetable momos. After reading through a lot of recipes from various sites I decided to try something on my own without a direct reference from any site because it was that easy a recipe to try. You can make chicken filling too but as I had only vegetables available in my refrigerator I tried out the vegetarian version.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup - All purpose flour
• Salt to taste
  
• Water to knead

For the filling:

• 1 - Carrot, finely diced
• 6-8 - French beans, finely chopped
  
• 1 handful, cabbage leaves, chopped
• 2 - Spring Onions, chopped
• 2 tsp - Oil
  
• 1/2 tsp - Pepper
• 1/2 tsp - Soya sauce
• 1/2 tsp - Crushed red dry chillies
  
• 3 cloves - Garlic, chopped
• 1/2 inch - Ginger piece, chopped
• Salt to taste

For Chilly garlic sauce: (the measurement of the items depends upon how you like it. Please feel free to change it according to your taste)

• 10-15 - Dry red chillies soaked in hot water or Fresh Red Jalapenos, de-seeded and chopped
  
• 4 big cloves garlic, chopped
• Salt to taste
  
• A pinch of sugar
• 1 tsp - White vinegar
  
  

Method:

• Mix flour and salt and add adequate water to bind the flour. Knead it into a dough as you do for roti. Cover and keep aside
• Microwave carrots and beans for 3-4 minutes
  
• Heat a wok with oil and saute ginger, garlic, crushed chillies. Add cabbage and spring onion and saute for a minute. Add cooked carrot and beans and suate. Add soya sauce, salt and pepper. Turn off the gas and cool it.

• 

• Take a marble sized ball from the dough and roll it ito a thin circle of approx 3" diameter. It should neither be too transparent nor opaque but should be such that when you place it against light it looks translucent. Place it on to your left palm and place a teaspoon full of filling and seal it. I followed this link for understanding how to fold the momos. There are 2 ways of doing it. The first one being the half moon(semi circle) and second one the round momo(gunny bag style). Repeat the process till you finish the dough or filling.
  
• Now apply some oil on the steamer and place them carefully on to it and cover it up and cook for 15-20 minutes.
  

• Serve steaming hot momos with chilly-garlic sauce.
  

For the sauce :

• Put all the ingredients in an blender and blend it to a coarse texture. Taste it to check if everything is balanced.
  
• Pour it into a saucepan and heat it on medium flame and let it simmer for 5 minutes or until the raw smell goes. Cool and serve. Garnish with scallions.