Recipe- Street Style Chicken Momos

The Momo is a dumpling made from plain flour and filled with either meat or vegetables. Inspired by Tibetan dumplings, the dish is a very popular Nepali street food and it has been absorbed into India’s street culture and can now be found on bustling Indian street corners served with zingy chutney’s.

In India it’s a meat or veg dumpling that is flavoured with spring onions, fresh coriander, ginger, garlic, chillies and a few fragrant spices. There are so many differnt variations - you can also miss out the spices and season just with soy sauce for a more Asian feel, you can make them with minced chicken, pork, lamb, mixed vegetables or even paneer. You can cook the meat first and then steam them or you can pan fry for a crispy momo too.

Ingredients

Momo Filling

500g of minced chicken (or a meat free alternative)
4-5 spring onions
1-2 chillies
4 cloves garlic
5cm piece of ginger
1 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin seeds, crushed
1-2 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt or 1 tsp soy sauce
Handful of fresh coriander leaves

Momo Wrappers

300g Plain flour
Pinch of salt
Water

Momo Achaar

200ml water
3 large ripe tomatoes
4-5 dried Kashmiri chillies
4 cloves garlic
7cm ginger
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp vinegar
½ tsp salt
1 tsp soy sauce

Method

Momo Filling

- Mince the onion with the garlic and set to one side.

- Heat a tbsp of oil and add the onion mixture, sautee for a few minutes.

- Mince the ginger and and green chilli mixture and add to the pan.Leave to cool for a minute.

- Add the mixture to the mince chicken, then add the turmeric, salt (or soy sauce), chilli powder, coriander, cumin powder and mix everything into the meat.

- Add 1-2 tbsp of vegetable oil and mix it again. This keeps the mixture nice and juicy.

- Add some finely chopped coriander and mix it all together.

Vegetarian Momo's

- You can use any vegetables of your choice, paneer or a meat free product.

- Just mince it and sauté the onions and veg with the ginger and garlic to soften the vegetables first.

Momo Wrappers

- Put the flour and a pinch of salt into a bowl.

- Add water, a little at a time to the flour to make dough.

- Knead the dough for a few more minutes until its soft and pliable. Let it rest for 20 minutes.

- Divide the dough into 20 pieces.

- With a rolling pin roll the dough as thin as possible into circles.

- You can also roll it out so it’s about 1mm thick and use a cutter to cut our circles approx. 7-8cm in diameter.

Making the Momos

- Put roughly one tbsp of the filling into the centre of the wrapping.

- Pleat the edges of the wrapper and rotate round until it's pleated all the way around and sealed.

- Oil the bottom of your steamer to stop them sticking and place into the steamer so they are not touching each other.

- Steam for 20-25 mins until the outside is no longer sticky.

To Pan Fry

- Add a tbsp of oil and heat add the momo’s and once they start to brown add about 50-100ml of water and put the lid on the pan and let them steam for 10 minutes. You made need to reduce the heat.

- Remove the lid and once the water has evaporated and toss them in some soy and chilli sauce or the momo chutney.

- Momos taste great on their own but some achar or sauce takes the taste one step further. In fact, some momo shops in Nepal are just popular due to their unique achaar.

Momo Achaar

- Heat approx. 200ml of water and add 3 diced tomato, 4 dried red chilli, garlic cloves and ginger and boil for 10-15 minutes until you have a pulp and the garlic is soft.

- Pour everything into blender with 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp vinegar, ¼ tsp salt and 1 tsp soy sauce and blitz until smooth. Check seasoning and serve with the momo's.

Served with

- Great as a starter or a snack - just make a lot!