North East Indian Thali

1001 Easy Momos ( Tibetian Dumplings)

Click the image on the left to view the cookbook.
Momos / momo-cha  are steamed dumplings. These are a  traditional delicacy in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Ladakh. They are also common in North East India. They have now become a common street food in many north Indian cities

Though most momos are steamed, the cooking technique can be tweaked as below :

Variation 1 : Instead of steaming, you can drop the dumplings into salted boiling water and cook for 10 minutes.

Variation 2 : Heat a spoon of butter. Add the steamed or boiled momos. Stir and cook on gentle heat for a minute. This gives them a crispy skin. 

When momos can be served in a bowl drenched in a hot and spicy sauce, they are called C-momos. Steamed and panfried momos are called  Kothey momos . Steamed momos can also be deep fried and taste like a chewy version of our Samosas.

Modak ( Kozhukattai) is the closest equivalent to momos we have in Indian cuisine. Though traditional momos use just wheat flour, we can apply our roti making expertise to combine an array of different flours with different flavourings and fillings to create a huge array of momos. If you’ve learnt to make a roti, you can make a momo. And if you are in a rush, you can use any dry curry as a quick filling. 

Tips : 

1. Use hot water for kneading dough. The dumpling would then have a greater elasticity and would hold its shape well.

2. While rolling out, keep the middle slightly thicke than the edges. This will prevent the stuffing from leaking out.

3. Use a pinch of yeast / baking powder while kneading. This leavens the dough and makes the momos soft.

Off this goes to Shrutei's Steamed Treats event.

North Eastern Meat & Fish cooking techniques

The North East uses a variety of cooking and fermenting techniques to handle fish and meat. Here are a few of them.

Wash small river fish, drain, let dry in sun for a day. Mix with coarsely chopped, young colocasia leaves and salt. Stuff into a dry bamboo hollow. Cover opening with foil and let ferment for a month.

Coat fish with seasoning, wrap in banana leaf to make a parcel and cook on a tava.

Cut pork into 1" cubes. Sprinkle salt. Grill over hot coals for 15 - 20 minutes.

Pack washed and drained, small river fish tightly in a dry air tight container. Let ferment in a dark place or a week. Refrigerate.

Stir in half a spoon of baking powder while cooking curries.

Mix pork and rice and pressure cook them together.

Grill pork cubes over charcoal, shred, mix with chili powder and dry bamboo shoots and pack in air tight containers. This stores for a few months.

Cut pork into 3" thick pieces. Sun dry for a week. Bottle. This keeps for an year. Sun it periodically to keep it fungus free. Heat it before serving.

Mix fish / chopped & semi boiled mutton / chicken / pork , mix with masalas, stuff in a bamboo hollow, seal open end with foil and grill over coals till bamboo is almost burnt.

Mix fish / chopped & semi boiled mutton / chicken / pork , mix masalas, wrap in banana leaf and cook on hot coals.

Bring water to boil. Add fish. Let cook. Add salt to taste and serve.

Take small river fish. Sprinkle salt and turmeric over them and deep fry.

Clean fish. Mix in salt, stuff into a clay pot, mix in mustard oil, seal and let ferment for three weeks.

Stuf vegetables and spices into bamboo hollow. Cook over hot coals.

10 Simple Recipes from North East India

North East recipes are rare on the Net, in spite of efforts by many bloggers to popularize them. Its cuisine is so different from the rest of India that I've been wanting to put up a cookbook for a long time. Guided mostly by the Essential North East cookbook by Hoihnu Hauzel, published by Penguin India, I now present 10 simple North east recipes. All these are greatly simplified so that a first time cook can easily cook them on the very first try.

1.: Rongpu Takeng ( Egg Chutney) cooked in Arunachal Pradesh is just boiled eggs blended to a paste with ginger and salt.

2.: Alu Pitika (Mashed Potatoes) cooked in Assam is just boiled potatoes mashed with mustard oil, chili and onions.

3.: Hmarcha Rawt (Chili Chutney ) cooked in Mizoram is dry roasted green chilies crushed with salt and ginger.

(Update : Have changed the name from Marcha Rot to Hmarcha Rawt. It does look more edible and authentic now ! - Thanks illusionaire )

4.: Ekung ( Tender bamboo shoots with crushed chillies) from Arunachal Pradesh is bamboo shoots cooked with a chili paste.

5.: Chi Al Meh: (Vegetable Stew) from Manipur is a mildly sour stew with boiled vegetables, flavoured with ginger and coriander leaves.

6.: Oying ( Vegetable Stew) is another simple stew Arunachal Pradesh , again flavoured with ginger.

7.: Ironba (Mashed Vegetables ) is Manipur speciality where a variety of boiled vegetables are mashed up and flavoured by fermented fish.

8.: Kosu Hajor (Colocasia leaf curry ) is a spicy curry from Assam, very much like an Indian curry.

9.:. Akhuni (Fermented Soyabean) from Nagaland is fermented soyabeans cooked with chili, onions and tomatoes.

10.: Akhuni Chutney (Fermented Soyabean Chutney) cooked in Nagaland is fermented soyabeans blended to a paste with roast chilies, ginger and salt.