Living in the MOMOment

Making My own Momos or Do It Yourself Dumplings

After last week's adventure with the momos, I decided that I should try out my own cooking skills and make my own momos.  For the rest of of who speak English,  momos are just steamed dumplings.  I've made dumplings in the past but they had a different flavor than the momos.  This is my attempt to recreate it.

First, I started out with the filling. 

I used a mixture of ground pork and ground chicken for the meat since I didn't have enough of each to make it one or the other.  Then for some veggies, I added chopped nappa cabbage and chopped cilantro.   For those of you who aren't familiar with nappa cabbage, it has a more delicate flavor than regular cabbage, and it is leafier and more tender like a leafy lettuce.  To spice it up, I added dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, a little oyster sauce for sweetness, black pepper, garlic powder since I didn't have any fresh garlic, a little salt, and for the special ingredients.... yellow curry and sesame oil.  The curry is what sets this apart from other dumplings I have made in the past.  It was really good with the nutty flavor of the sesame oil.   

Mixed it all together to make this bowl of mash...

 

Now for the fun part...and also the most time consuming part.  I took a spoonful of the filling and scooped it into a round dumpling wrapper that I purchased at my local Asian grocery store.  I used water as my glue and folded the wrapper in half into a semicircle.  I pinched the edges together so it looked like a sealed taco.  Then I crimped the edges by folding the edge on itself all along the outside rim.  I did this so that it would stay sealed when I steamed the dumpling. 

I put the dumplings on a small plate and put them into the steamer for about 15 minutes.  Poof!  Magic momos! 

Here's a close up so you can see the crimped edges.  Nice to see that they all stayed sealed.

I did have a few casualties while removing the dumpling from the dish.  I may have to invest a bigger plate that fits in my steamer pot if I want to play more in Momoland.  In the meantime, lesson learned... use a bigger plate so that the dumplings do not touch and stick together while cooking. 

It's OK though because I did need a few to test for quality control.  Can I say these were yummy?  Steaming them sealed in the juices and flavor. 

I was planning on making a sauce to go with them but, I didn't want to take the time to since I wanted to eat these up as soon as I could.  They had enough flavor themselves that they could stand alone with a sauce.  But since I couldn't resist the urge to dip them in something, I dipped them a mixture of Sriracha sauce and soy sauce. 

Overall, I am pleased with the results of my first experiment.  The dumplings had a great taste and did not fall apart.  The filling stayed nice and juicy and tasted great on its own and with a spicy soy dipping sauce.  And if you prefer pan-fried dumplings, fry the leftovers the next day in a bit of oil a great way to reheat.  Next time, I will definitely try to recreate a similar tomato dipping sauce.  Until next time...