Nepal

We have been doing a meal from a different country each weekend and this weekend was Nepal. It was a bit of a busier weekend with Friday night’s meal being taken up by cheeseburgers (it was national cheeseburger day we were told, and you can’t say no to that!), Saturday morning by lessons on the new in ear monitors at church, evening by Mikayla working, and Sunday evening by dinner in the orchard, a lovely meal put on by our dear friends. So that left Sunday lunch. I am thankful we could still make time for it, but long for those weekends where we aren’t so busy again!!

For our meal we made Momos which are essentially dumplings. We didn’t have much success at all with the dough as it ended up being too hard and dry, but the girls did their best as I dealt with the meat. It still worked out okay, but I think it would have been better had we been able to roll it thinner and control it better.

The filling is made of ground chicken thighs, or in our case turkey as it was cheaper, minced garlic and ginger, cumin, cinnamon, cilantro, and onion, letting it rest for a while to let the flavours incorporate. I was surprised and excited by all the things that went into the meat, hoping for a deep, flavourful dish.

We learned how to make the dumpling shapes by gathering the dough around the meat, pinching it as you go. I am not very good at all, but was improving slightly as we went along. I think you could tell the idea anyways.

I was quite surprised how quickly these cooked, steaming from raw, finishing in about nine minutes. So though they take longer to prepare in some ways, they don’t take too long to cook at all! They were pretty tasty and seemed to be a hit as they disappeared. They didn’t seem to have as much flavour as I’d hoped, but they were still good and I enjoyed the mix.

We paired these with Lassi, a drink that I’d found and recalled seeing similar at Lachi when we’d been, an East Indian restaurant in town. I’m sure there are different kinds of this drink available, but I’m pretty sure none of us will be trying this drink again any time soon! They were made from Dahi (a type of yogurt), water, sugar, and rose water. Here you get the floral taste of the rose water paired with the tartness of the yogurt. We ended up pouring a small amount in each glass and even still dumping some out. This is one of the few things we have thrown out and not finished, but no one complained at all. This is not one that will be made again, at least in this flavour. I think there is a mango one and I’m not sure if that would be better?

Though one of the facts I came across said that they do not have dessert, I did see one that looked really good and we made it last night, more because I wanted them than they were a part of this meal. Called Ladoos, they are made from melted chocolate and cream in the centre of condensed milk and coconut. They take some time to make, but they must have been a hit as they are all gone! The recipe said to make them the size of lemons, but I am not sure that anyone would have finished one at that size, being as sweet as they are! I made them about the size of a golf ball which seemed much more reasonable.

Did you know that there are more than 900 species of birds which accounts for 8.9% of the total species of birds all around the world? Nepal is home to the highest lake on earth, Tilicho, as well as the deepest lake on earth, Shey Phoksundoo. If you ever go to Nepal, be sure to never touch people on the head, point with your fingers, or eat or pass with your left hand. Nepal is one of the few countries in the world to not be colonized, therefore does not have an independence day.

Nepal had a population of 29.942 million (2019) and has a population density of 203.3 compared to Canada’s 4.15 (per square km). Their capital city is Kathmandu, and the national languages include Nepali, Maithili, Bhojpuri, and English.