Most of Nepal love their very own Choila, which is grilled (buffalo) meat dressed in spicy oil seasoning.  Choila (also spelled Chwelaa) is a classic Newari dish from Nepal usually paired with crispy dry flattened (or beaten) de-husked rice, known as Chiura in Nepal and Poha in other parts of Indian subcontinent. The spicy oil seasoning of the grilled meat is partially soaked up by crispy flattened rice. The resulting bite is crispy flattened rice texture with the texture of grilled meat. Bobby Flay captures this texture in crunchified burger by adding crispy potato chips on grilled burger meat.

Nepal also love Wai Wai, a Thai brand of instant ramen noodle — now the most popular packaged food in Nepal. Wai Wai is sort of Nepal’s naturalized national dish that changed eating habits of people – shifting source of food ‘out of earth’ to ‘out of plastic wrapper’. People eat Wai Wai as a ramen soup or just by itself as a snack.

How about combining Nepal’s indigenous dish with its naturalized dish?

Here’s my quick snack of Choila served with slightly crushed Wai Wai. Here, Wai Wai substituted the crunchy flattened rice, Chiura.

PS. I have to admit that this dish was created out of necessities of me not having any access to flattened rice the evening I was making grilled choila.

I am in a serious relationship with momo. I often talk about this savory steamed dumpling to anyone who shows interest. My momo enthusiasm has rubbed off on many omnivore friends – most of them at least try this curried meat wrapped inside flour dough.

For many vegetarians, pescatarian, or folks with dietary restrictions, my momo enthusiasm is somewhat anticlimactic. One of my friends eats only halal meat, which means either getting halal certified meat or serving fish momo or vegetarian momo.

For the friend, I decided to make tuna momo.

Why tuna for momo?

Tuna is a rare fish because it’s warm-blooded like many mammals and have a higher concentration of myoglobin, which is used for higher oxygen intake. Myoglobin, a ubiquitous protein, gives meat its characteristic red color – the higher the amount, the deeper the red color. The amount of myoglobin depends on species of animal, their body parts as well as their age. For example, beef has more red color, i.e, has more myoglobin, than other mammals such as pork or veal (young beef). In tuna, myoglobin concentration is comparable to chicken (light muscles) to beef (dark muscles). I am using tuna steaks because I believe it will be closest fish with the meaty qualities.

Ingredients:

For tuna filling;
tuna steak without skin (¾ lb)
red onion (1 medium, finely chopped)
garlic (4 cloves, crushed)
ginger (1/2 square inch, crushed)
garam masala (1 teaspoon)
oil (1 tablespoon)
water (¼ cup)
salt (1 teaspoon)

Dumpling wrappers pack of 1 (40 pieces)

For momo achaar;
roasted salsa (1 cup)
tahini (2 tablespoon)
water (½ cup)
salt (¼ teaspoon)
cumin powder (1 teaspoon)
cilantro (6 frozen cubes)

Yields 40

Here’s how I made the tuna momo.

First thing, make sure you get red tuna steaks — not canned tuna. Canned tuna is white tuna meat processed with salt, oil, and water.

Cut tuna steaks into pieces.

Grind the tuna steaks in a food processor. Since tuna meat is a tender, it needs only a few pulses. If you don’t have a food processor, you can chop/mash it with hand as well.

Chop onion, garlic, and ginger. I chopped them in the same food processor container. No need to clean since everything is going to get mixed.

Add onion/garlic/ginger puree to ground tuna.

Season it with garam masala, oil, salt, and water.

Mix to get the dumpling filling. The tuna momo filling looks like chicken or turkey momo fillings.

How to properly use the commercial dumpling wrapper?
For dumpling wrappers, I used a commercial wrapper. The wrapper package can be stored long term inside a freezer. Thaw and store them in refrigerator prior to use. Make sure to leave the thawed wrappers in the room temperature for at least a couple of hours before using them. Keeping the wrapper in the room temperature will make dough soft – making it easier to wrap and seal momos. I have seen even veteran momo makers failing to do this step- patience is indeed a virtue and microwaving wouldn’t cut it here . Thus, remember to bring the wrapper (dough) to room temperature before using.

Put a teaspoon of tuna filling in the middle of the wrapper. Brush (or coat) the borders of the wrapper with water. Seal the tuna inside the dough by pinching the dough. I am not going to get into the art of dumpling making here. The goal is to make a sealed filling wrapped in the flour dough.

Easiest Momo Sauce Ever!

For momo sauce, I whipped up a very easy (read lazy) version of classic momo achaar (sauce) made with roasted tomatoes and sesame from ingredients found in the any US grocery store.

For this you need a (double) roasted tomato salsa and tahini (sesame paste).

Optionally, you can put cilantro as well. Keeping the easy-theme, I used frozen cilantro cubes.

Mix tahini and cilantro to salsa. Spice up with ground cumin seeds.  To get constancy right, add water and supplement salt to taste.

I wouldn’t say this is the best momo sauce ever, but considering the effort needed, it is the tastiest bang for your time.

The flavor of the tuna momo was slight fishy – not too fishy since tuna is a mild tasting fish. The texture was just right for the dumpling. I am happy to report that this tuna momo satisfied my pescatarian friend’s craving for momo.

I was surprised that I had even some leftover for the next day. Like any momos, fried next day momos are so preciously delicious.

Related Dumpling Posts

• Tuna Momo with the easiest momo sauce
• Counting Calories in Momo
• Momo Recipe – In Memory of Kathmandu’s Momocha
• My attempt at making vegetarian momo
• Classic Momo Sauce – Roasted tomatoes and cilantro
• My Momo

Generally momos, curried dumplings, are steamed and consumed during cold winter evenings in Nepal. Hot steam used for cooking momos keeps the rooms warm between the batches (pakh) of momos, which also warms the body of the eater, in turn giving warmth to their hungry souls.

Momos are steamed in multiple batches every 15 minutes or so at the home in small steamer consisting of 2 or 3 levels/floors. Everyone ends up with only a few momos couple of times in an hour. So momo party usually takes a shape of a slow snacking all evening long usually resulting in bloated stomachs caused by the shared gluttony.

How many calories are in momo?

Nutritional analysis of momo meal to find calories per serving is an approximation at the best because there is no standard recipe for momo and there is no data on numbers of momo people consume per serving.

Nutritional Analysis on published Momo Recipes

The initial sets of nutritional values were calculated the four meat based momo recipes selected from published momo recipes. The first recipe chosen was the turkey momo recipe published on the DesiGrub by Anita (my favorite American momo recipe). The next recipe was khasi (lamb) momo recipe from the book Asian Dumplings by Andrea Nguyen. The final two recipes were lamb momo and chicken momo from the most comprehensive Nepali cookbook, The Taste of Nepal by Jyoti Pathak.  The size of momo was based on what was suggested by the author.

All these values are calculated based on the USDA estimates. The quality of ingredients may change these values slightly.

Nutritional Analysis on the Same Momo Recipe – Different Meat

All those four momo recipes are inherently different. Many ingredients change from one momo recipe to another. What would happen if we just change the meat? Thus, keeping everything else same, we calculated nutritional value for the DesiGrub momo recipe by changing the type of meat. For this nutritional analysis, the size of a momo was about 28-32 grams each, which we found was about an average size for momo based on our quick measurements.

We found an average number of standard (generic) size momo has 59 calories. We can safely assume each momo is ~ 60 calories depending on the recipe and exact size.

Average Number of Momo Consumed per Person

After getting average calories per momo, we still need to know how many momo an average person eats to calculated the total calories of momo dinner. Momos sold as a fast/street food is served usually in a plate of 10 momos. However, during “steamout” with friends and family, who is really counting? We performed a quick survey on the Facebook (Join DesiGrub @ Facebook!) and got 37 responses up to the point of writing.

The average numbers of momo per person per meal is 18±13. However we found these averages changed depending on national origin and sex of the respondent. The highest average was for a male of Nepali origin, who typically consumes 27±10 momos per meal. The lowest number of momo eating group was non-Nepali female with just 10±3 momos per meal.

Average Number of Calories Consumed per Person During Momo Dinner

Here are average calories we are consuming per momo dinner. This estimate still underestimates the total caloric value of momo meal because we don’t account for the sauce (achaar) consumed with momos.

Hopefully, we have not deterred you for eating momos. In future blog post, we will talk about lesson learned on making low calorie dumplings.

Related Dumpling Posts

• Tuna Momo with the easiest momo sauce
• Counting Calories in Momo
• Momo Recipe – In Memory of Kathmandu’s Momocha
• My attempt at making vegetarian momo
• Classic Momo Sauce – Roasted tomatoes and cilantro
• My Momo

Aloo Sadeko is a boiled potato dish mostly popular in the Newar community in Kathmandu valley. Aloo (or alu) is potatoes and sadeko roughly translates into marinated. This marinated potato salad type dish is commonly used as afternoon snack and served with Chiura (dried beaten rice). I once made this as an appetizer for my friends and family in a small gathering at my place.  Since then, the popularity of this marinated potato salad has lead into a norm that I make this dish every time there is a get-together.

Complete list of ingredients and amount are given at the end of the post.

Boil egg sized red potatoes in a pot by adding some water and a pinch of salt.  Boil it under a full gas power for about 20 minutes. You can tell whether the potatoes are cooked by poking into potatoes with a fork or a tooth pick.

Once done, let the potatoes sit for 15 minutes for cooling off. Peel potatoes. Dice potatoes into to small pieces.  An egg sized potato can be cut into 6 pieces.

Dice tomatoes, onions, green chili pepper into small pieces and pour over the diced potatoes. Chop cilantro and add into the potatoes.

Chill in freezer for 10/15 minutes.

Add black peppers.

Chinese peppers.

Ginger and garlic, black salt (Kala Namak), and table salt.

Cumin powder.

Turmeric powder.

Crushed red chili pepper.

Paprika

Classic yellow French mustard. (or mustard powder)

Heat oil with Methi (fenugreek)   in a small pan for about 3/5 minutes until it turns into black. Once done, let Methi sit for 10 minutes for cooling off.  Be careful!

Pour oil with Methi over the potatoes.

Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl.

Best if mixed with bare (cleaned) hand.

Prepared Aloo Sadeko.

Most enjoyable if served with Chiura (dried rice).

Ingredients:

20 small size (an egg size or as small as you can get) red potatoes
1 small sized red dried onion (diced)
1 medium size (larger than an egg) red tomato (diced)
2 large or 4 small garlic cloves (crushed)
4 small or 2 large size green chili peppers (diced)
4 tea spoon of vegetable oil
1 tea spoon of ginger paste
1/2 tea spoon of black salt
1/3 tea spoon of regular salt
1/2 tea spoon of fenugreek
1/2 tea spoon of French’s mustard
1/2 tea spoon of red chili pepper (crushed)
1 tea spoon of paprika powder
1 tea spoon of cumin powder
1/4 table spoon of turmeric powder
10 strings of cilantro (chopped)