On every Himalayan restaurant menu, momos were the dish I knew I had to try to recreate. It is easily the best-known Tibetan specialty among Westerners–or at least New Yorkers–and even has its own annual event in Queens.
In this post, I’m going to walk through and reflect on my own momo-making experience. For the actual recipe, click here.
Preparation
I researched several momo recipes online to get a general idea of what usually goes inside a beef momo. Then, I combined elements from each to form a preliminary recipe.
Preliminary Recipe*
Dough:
- 2 cups flour
- 2/3 cup water
Filling:
- 1 1/3 lb ground beef
- 1/2 cup diced yellow onion
- 2 tbsp minced garlic
- Several tablespoons of garlic
- Several dashes of ground ginger
- Several dashes of salt
*The amounts I actually used are reflected in the recipe here
Then I ordered a set of small bamboo steamers from Amazon because I didn’t own any sort of steaming equipment and they were what the restaurants used (Lhasa Fast Foods used the small ones but I’m not sure how big the ones other restaurants used).
I also watched several YouTube videos (such as this one and this one) that broke down the process, especially the momo-folding techniques. My family occasionally makes our own dumplings and buns, so I had a bit of experience working with dough and making different folds.
The day before I made the momos, I went to Westside and bought a bit more than a pound of ground beef (ground beef chuck, to be specific; it was the cheapest) and a couple small yellow onions. I already had all of the other ingredients for the filling and dough on hand.
The Making of the Momos
I woke up mid-Sunday morning and immediately got to preparing the dough. While kneading, I realized that I had forgotten to buy a rolling pin. I almost resigned myself to using my water bottle–which is what I’ve made do with in the past when working with dough in my dorm–but luckily, my friend whom I invited to taste-test the momos lived near a hardware store and was able to grab one on his way up.
For the dough, I used about 2.5 cups of flour and 1 cup of water, as opposed the 2 cups of flour and 2/3 cup of water that one recipe gave. I made this change because I came to terms with the fact that 1) I wouldn’t be able to use up all of the ground beef with just 2 cups of flour and 2) my friend and I would be able to eat way more than what I had originally planned to make.
When making the filling, I used the recipe as no more than a guideline and added more or less of each ingredient based on how I thought the filing should look and smell. As a result, even the final recipe does not contain truly precise measurements (for the final recipe I tried to estimate the total amounts of everything I actually used).
I tried to make a couple wrappers using my water bottle as a rolling pin and quickly realized that I made the right call when I asked my friend to grab an actual rolling pin–the process would have taken at least twice as long with the water bottle, especially since I wanted to make sure that I rolled the wrapper out so that the center was thicker than the edges. The first couple of momos did not have the most defined folds and pleats, but my technique did improve with practice. After I had filled one steamer basket with the “Amdo-style” momos, I switched to folding the momos in the Lhasa style. At this time, I also put a skillet with about an inch of water over medium-high heat.
When I had filled the second basket, I stacked the two on top of each other, put on the lid, and placed the whole ensemble into skillet, in which the water was at a rolling boil. I remember the chefs from Lhasa Fast Foods steaming their momos for 8 minutes, so I set a timer and continued making momos.
After 8 minutes, I carefully lifted the top of the steamer to check the momos and saw juices bubbling out of the tops of the Amdo-style ones. However, I couldn’t tell whether or not they were cooked based off of the transparency of the dough. To err on the safe side, I let them cook for another 2 minutes before lifting the stacked baskets out of the skillet.
When the momos had cooled enough for us to bite into them without burning ourselves, we each had a couple before coming to a consensus that the filling needed more flavor. I also noticed that the filling was much more clumped together than the filling of the moms we had at Phayul. Hypothesizing that the meatball-like texture was due to over-cooking, I made a note to decrease the cooking time of the second batch to 8 minutes.
I added a couple more splashes of soy sauce and garlic to the filling and finished making enough to fill the baskets a second time.
The second batch were a bit more flavorful but we agreed that the filling could use even more seasoning, so I liberally added soy sauce and pinches of salt. The texture of the filling was looser, which was good, but I thought that we might be able to get away with an even shorter cooking time.
The third and final batch steamed for six minutes and was easily the best batch–the meat had a good texture and the filling was seasoned enough that it was able to be eaten alone without any dipping sauce. Third time’s the charm, they say.
Reflection
The entire momo-making process, from starting the dough to clean-up, took about 2.5-3 hours. Overall, there were no huge mishaps, even though it took three batches for the momos to come out looking and tasting somewhat close to those served at restaurants.
If I were to make momos again, I would opt for fresh ginger–instead of ground ginger–and add spring onions to the filling, as well as liberal amounts of soy sauce and salt. I would also omit any oil and look for another type of ground beef; the ground beef chuck ended up being extremely oily, and it didn’t help that I also added oil to the filling. Six minutes turned out to be the optimal cooking time for the size of my momos. Because my momos were smaller than what we had eaten at restaurants, the higher surface-area to volume ratio seemed like the most likely explanation for the shorter cooking time.