I wish I could tell you some wonderful tale of how I was inspired to make this but I don’t have one. I’ve long known that coffee soaked dates are a Middle Eastern classic and delicious too, I’m also a big fan of sesame in all it’s forms. This recipe was born out of a burst of creativity with no particular direction other than self-indulgence.
Ingredients
Step one
100g | 3 ½oz fresh pitted medjool dates
100ml | 3 ½ fl oz very strong espresso coffee
15 green cardamom pods, roughly crushed
½ cinnamon stick.
Zest from one lemon
Pour the coffee over the dates and cardamon and leave to infuse for 24 to 48 hours, the longer the better.
Step 2
200g | 7oz tahini
200g | 7oz fresh double cream
200g | 7oz condensed milk
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons of milk
Method
Make a puree by pressing the date and coffee mixture through a sieve with the back of a spoon discarding the skin and spices set the puree aside in the fridge until needed
In a large bowl mix the tahini, cream, condensed milk, salt, and milk together, the mixture will thicken slightly as the tahini meets the cream. If you have an ice cream maker, pour the sesame mixture into your ice cream maker, and churn until it’s creamy and almost doubled in size, this ice cream won’t set hard. Once the ice cream is ready, pour half of it into a freezer-proof container, and add half of the date mixture on top. Run a spoon through the sesame ice cream and date puree for a ripple effect, repeat the process with the remaining ice cream and date mixtures. Place the ice cream into the freezer and freeze for at least six hours before serving.
Mention the word momo to an expat Nepalese person, and they will turn misty-eyed, momos are the ultimate comfort food and source of homesickness for ‘hole in the wall’ snack bars. Yet no one can fully appreciate the significance of momos until they have experienced sitting around a fire on a cold Himalayan night with the wind howling outside. It’s a communal event with old and young chatting while helping, some rolling the dough as others fill and seal. As soon as the first batch of momos is cooked everyone dives in all at once to grab the spoils. Blowing smoke dragons to alleviate burning mouths while juices drip down greasy chins as the momos are ravenously devoured.
When you read the method for shaping momos, it sounds alarmingly complicated. Please don’t be put off, momos are not difficult to shape, however, writing a clear description of how to shape them is very difficult.
Ingredients
Dough wrappers
280g | 10oz plain flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder*
Tepid water to mix
Filling
250g | 9oz minced pork (belly is best)
1 medium onion, finely diced
1½ teaspoons very finely grated ginger
1 teaspoon very finely grated garlic
1 tablespoon finely chopped coriander stalks
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon salt
Method
Start by making the dough, in a medium sized mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt, adding enough tepid water to bring the flour together into a soft dough. Lightly flour your work surface and knead the dough for 5–10 minutes until it becomes soft and elastic (just like making bread dough). Return the dough to the bowl, and cover it with a damp cloth, let the dough rest for an hour while you make the filling.
Making the filling is quick and easy, place all the filling ingredients in a second bowl and mix them thoroughly with your hands. Set the filling aside for 20 minutes or until you are ready to fill your dough wrappers.
To prepare the wrappers, *the easy way, flour your working surface, roll out your dough to 2mm thickness and cut it into circular, biscuit like rounds using a round 76mm / 3” pastry cutter. Set the round wrappers to one side and cover them with a damp cloth, it’s important not to let the dough dry out. Bring the remaining dough back together, repeating rolling, cutting, and covering the wrappers until all the dough is used.
Shaping perfect momos is an art and does require some practice, perfect momos are totally unnecessary, it really doesn’t matter how skilful or not you are, the flavour is the same. Balance a wrapper on the palm/fingers of your non-dominant hand, place a generous teaspoon of the pork filling into the centre of the wrapper and dampen the inside edge of the wrapper with a little water.
For a crescent shaped momo, using your non-dominant hand, fold the dough into a semi-circle, similar to making a pasty. Using the thumb and forefinger of your dominant hand pinch the near edge together, moving along the momo use the forefinger of your non-dominant hand to form a small pleat on the side away from you. With your dominant thumb and forefinger, pinch the pleat together with the edges to seal a section of the momo. Repeat the pleating and sealing until your momo is completely sealed.
For a round momo the pinching and pleating method is the same. Starting with the edge nearest to you, lift the wrapper edge a little and pinch a small section of the wrapper. Then, using the forefinger of your non-dominant hand form a small pleat on the side away from you and pinch the pleat closed with your dominant forefinger and thumb. Working clockwise if you are righthanded or anticlockwise if you are lefthanded, turn the momo slightly with each pleat and pinch. Use your final pinch to seal the momo.
Place the momos to one side and cover them with a damp cloth until you are ready to cook them. Fill the base of your steamer one third full of water and bring the water to a fast boil. Oil the steaming section of your steamer** and place the momos in the steamer leaving at least a centimetre gap between them. Fit the lid securely to the steamer and place the steamer on the pan. Steam the momos for 15–20 minutes until the dough becomes translucent.
* Baking powder isn’t strictly traditional, using it will make the cooked dough softer.
** If you are using a bamboo steamer or a steamer with large holes, you will need to
line the steamer with parchment paper that you have pierced holes in.
Momos freeze very well, to cook them from frozen, steam them for 20–25 the traditional way
This makes a very tasty way to use the last of a roast lamb. There’s been lots of taming and sanitising before I dared to publish a recipe. The original ‘sha aloo jhol’, it’s proper name, isn’t for the faint-hearted. High in the Himalayas, away from the tourist trails, where the trees peter out, people raise ‘changara’, a pungent semi-wild goat with curly horns. When a changara is killed for meat, the haunches are hung out to ripen and air dry. Their rancid perfume signposts people’s presence long before you see a homestead. Small pieces of meat are sliced from the haunch and used to flavour an otherwise bland diet of boiled food, remarkably, rancid goat is delicious. I had to find a palatable way to share the spirit of this dish.
Ingredients
Cooked lamb bones from a roast with any bits of meat left on them
200 grams | 7 oz cooked brown chickpeas
1 ½ tablespoons finely grated garlic
1 ½ tablespoons finely grated ginger
1 litre | 2 pints approx. water
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 ½ teaspoons ground chilli (optional)
2 teaspoons salt
1 medium onion peeled and sliced lengthways
300 grams | 10 oz waxy potatoes, peeled and roughly cut into 2cm pieces
500 ml | 1 pint leftover gravy, add extra water if the gravy isn’t enough
40 ml | 1 ½ fl oz vegetable oil
2 teaspoons whole cumin
2 medium tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 spring onions, sliced
Small bunch chives, cut into 2cm lengths
Method
Rinse and place the chickpeas into a large heavy bottomed pan with lamb bones, garlic, ginger and enough water to just cover them (approx. 1 litre). Place the lid on the pan and bring it to the boil, boil vigorously for 10 to 15 minutes then turn the heat down to a rolling boil and cook until the chickpeas are soft enough to crush with a fork. Brown chickpeas will keep a bit of bite when they’re cooked.
Add the cumin, coriander, turmeric, chilli, salt, onion, potatoes, and gravy or water. Bring everything back to the boil until the potatoes are cooked. Remove the bones from the stew and pull any meat and marrow bone from them using a fork, return the meat and marrow to the stew and discard the bones.
Heat the oil in a small frying pan until it’s very hot, add the cumin seeds and fry until they brown and are popping. Add the tomato, stir it well and fry until the tomato has softened then add the chives. Stir the chives through the tomatoes and pour the mixture straight into the stew. It will sizzle and splutter.
Stir and check for seasoning before serving.
If you’re using dried chickpeas soak them for 24 hrs changing the water after 12hrs, if time is short then soak them at least overnight.
A smoky kitchen lit only by a fire and daylight from the single door is the heart of Nepalese cooking. The soul is the thousands of women who crouch uncomplaining over the single source of heat, juggling pans to create a daily feast for their families.
Along the highways cooks magic meals for travellers from the most meagre of ingredients, a skill close to alchemy. They don’t rely on expensive and difficult to find spices, opting instead for spices they can grow or forage.
Weighing is by far the most consistent and accurate way to measure ingredients for a recipe. All the recipes are done in metric and US pounds and ounces for your convenience. There isn’t really a rule other than to say you should choose the units of measurement you find the most comfortable with and stick with that.
Using cups is always a bit hit and miss, there are so many variables between weight and volume it’s difficult to be accurate every time. You won’t find cups used very often on this website simply because I stick to measurements that I know work.
Using teaspoons and tablespoons as measures makes sense, they’re easily to hand and as long as you give your ingredients a quick stir, before measuring them, you will be accurate enough. If you use measuring spoons then it’s always best to scrape the top flat, not pack your ingredients down.
If you’re a confident cook who shuns the scales, I’m with you. When I cook at home I don’t use any formal measuring. I’ve always cooked by eye and it wasn’t until I started writing recipes down for other people that I had to buy a set of scales so you will find nearly all the recipes very forgiving.
Heating oil is one of the most important skills in cookery, however, don’t be fooled into thinking that achieving the right temperature is tricky. You really don’t need perfect judgement, cooking that way would make even the most experienced chefs nervous.
The most accurate method of checking your oil temperature is a thermometer. If you don’t have a thermometer, and I don’t use one, here are my favourite methods.
The chopstick / wooden spoon method
To test the temperature of oil for stir-frying dip a wooden chopstick or the tip of a wooden spoon into the oil. You can use any wooden utensil, the important thing is that whatever you use it has to be food safe and unvarnished.
When you dip the chopstick into the oil, it will start to fry, and you can tell how hot the oil is by the bubbles.
If nothing happens or the bubbles are small and slow moving, it’s Cool. The oil is too cold for most cooking.
If you see bubbles gently rising to the surface and popping the oil is Medium. Around 120ºC the right temperature for gentle cooking in small quantities.
If you see lots of bubbles moving fast the oil is Medium Hot. Around 180ºC the right temperature for stir frying and the most often used temperature.
If the chopstick bubbles furiously the oil is Hot. The oil is too hot, for most recipes.
The wok method
This method works with a steel or iron wok and when you are only heating a small amount of oil. It’s not suitable for pans with a nonstick coating or deep frying.
Heat your wok until the metal starts to change colour or smoke a little. Pour the oil into the pan and gently swirl it around to coat the bottom ⅓ of the pan. It’s ready to start stir frying straight away.
Deep frying
Using a thermometer really is best for this, testing the oil with a little batter does work but it’s by no means fail safe. All my recipes will tell you the cooking temperature for your oil.
The smoke method
Many recipes say to heat your oil until it’s smoking, this is woefully inaccurate and requires you to know the smoke point of different oils. Unless you are already comfortable with smoking oil I don’t recommend it. Smoke means your oil is burning so you have to rely on the food you add to bring the temperature down.
In Nepal the sweet chutney is made using a fruit called ‘lapsi’ its mouth puckeringly sour and utterly delicious, it’s also generally unavailable in the west. Apricots are on the other hand readily available. When I was in Mustang, Northern Nepal, it was so sad to see all the traditional apricot trees left abandoned in favour of apples. I started thinking of different ways to make apricots popular again then it struck me, apricots would make a brilliant chutney, and they do.
Ingredients
250 g | 9 oz dried apricots, soaked for 12 hours in water
15 grams | ½ oz fresh ginger, peeled and finely cut into thin matchsticks
2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
½ teaspoon panch puran
4 cardamom pods
150 g | 5 ¼ oz granulated sugar
120 ml | ½ cup distilled vinegar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon crushed chilli
¼ teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Method
Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan to medium, add the panch puran and allow the seeds to darken and pop, about 30 seconds. Place the apricots with the soaking liquor and all the remaining ingredients into the pan and bring to the boil. Once the chutney is boiling reduce the heat so it is gently boiling and cook until the chutney has thickened. The best way to check if your chutney is done is to stir it, when it’s ready it will start to stick on the bottom of the pan and bubble when you stir it. If you like your chutney very thick you will need to cook it a little longer, stirring regularly as it will stick and burn easily. Remember the chutney will thicken more as it cools. Once you are happy with the consistency of the chutney take it off the heat and allow it to cool a little before you spoon it into sterilised jars and seal. The chutney is ready for eating as soon as it cools but it’s much better if you leave it for a week so the flavours can develop.* Dried apricots vary widely in the amount of water they will absorb, cover the apricots with 2 cm | 1inch of water. If you find they soak up all the water after a few hours it’s fine to add more, top them up to just below the tops of the apricots this time around.
No meal in Nepal is complete without ‘sag’ spinach, in fact there are many different types of spinach. we have been serving a version of this recipe in Yak Yeti Yak for over 20 years and it’s still one of out most popular dishes.
Ingredients
400 grams | fresh spinach, washed, dried and torn in half
20 grams | 1 oz fresh dill, finely chopped
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon crushed chilli (optional)
½ teaspoon Panch Puran (optional)
1 medium onion, finely sliced
1 teaspoon finely grated garlic
25 grams | 1 oz fresh ginger, finely sliced and cut into thin matchsticks
1 large tomato, roughly chopped
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Yak Yeti Yak or garam masala
1 bunch spring onions, cleaned, roots removed and cut into 2 cm (1 inch) pieces
Method
Heat the oil in a wok or high sided frying pan until it’s medium, add the chilli and panch puran, fry the seeds until they start to pop then add the onion and salt. You will need to keep stirring to prevent the onion from burning at the edges. Once the onion is starting to turn translucent add the masala, garlic, and ginger then fry until the spices start to stick to the base of the pan, add a tablespoon or 2 of water, just enough to lift the spices off the bottom of the pan. Add the tomato and fry stirring occasionally until the tomato softens but still holds its shape add the spring onions and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes, tip the spinach, watercress and dill into the pan, keep frying and turning, until the spinach is completely wilted. Check for salt and serve immediately
Over my life time I must have eaten this curry more often than any other. In Nepal, when times are tough potatoes and cauliflowers are always still available. We lived on this curry for 2 months after the monsoon floods in 1993 when the whole of Kathmandu was dependant on US and UK food aid. Then again in the last days of the Nepalese Monarchy during the 24 hour curfews, we’d sneak out and follow drainage ditches to buy supplies from farmers, ‘aloo cauli’ was our staple diet.
Ingredients
275 grams | 9 oz cauliflower equal sized florets plus a few of the leaves
275 g | 9oz waxy salad potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
80 g | 2½ oz shallots, finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
1 inch piece of fresh ginger (approximately10 g), cut inti very fine matchsticks
1 green finger chilli, finely sliced (optional)
1 large tomato, roughly chopped
120 ml | ½ cup rapeseed or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon Panch Puran
1 ½ teaspoons Yak Yeti Yak or garam masala
1 teaspoon salt
400 ml | 1½ cups water
Method
Heat a wok or a heavy bottomed pan and add the oil, as soon as the oil is medium hot add the Panch Puran and chilli. Once the seeds begin to pop, turn the temperature down a little and add the potatoes. Cook the potatoes stirring them for 4-5 minutes until they are well covered in the oil. Add the shallots, garlic, ginger and salt and gently fry until the shallots start to turn translucent then add the masala. The masala will quickly stick to the base of the pan so once this happens add half the water and turn the heat back up, put a lid on the pan. Boil the potatoes until they are cooked but a little al dente, add the cauliflower florets, leaves and chopped tomato. Add more water as needed and continue to cook until the cauliflower is slightly al dente, check for salt and serve.
The citrusy heat of Nepalese timur with the sweetness of cold water fish is the perfect pairing.
A quick caveat, this is supposed to serve 4 as a starter but the first time I made it I managed to ‘taste test’ my way to finishing it all.
Ingredients
1 medium fillet firm *white fish (roughly 300 grams | 10 oz)
50 grams | 2 oz salt
50 grams | 2 oz sugar
Grated zest ½ orange
1 teaspoon ground timur or Sichuan pepper
1 teaspoon crushed black pepper
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Method
In a bowl mix together salt, sugar, orange zest, timur, black pepper, and cinnamon. Rinse the fish fillet and dry thoroughly with kitchen paper. Rub the fish skin side with ⅓ of the curing salt and place skin side down in a dish big enough to lie the fish flat. Cover the fish with the remaining salt mixture and pat down well, loosely cover with cling film. Place a second, slightly smaller, flat bottomed dish on top of the fish and leave to cure in the fridge 2 to 4 hours or overnight depending on how salty you like your cure.
Once the fish has cured take it from the fridge and wash any remaining salt off before drying it thoroughly with kitchen paper. Store the fish in the fridge wrapped in baking parchment until you need it.
*I’ve made this with whiting, pollock, and mackerel and it’s been delicious every time, it’s always best to go for the freshest fish rather than being set on the type of fish.
Serving suggestion Slice thinly on the diagonal as you would slice smoked salmon. Serve with sour cream, pickled carrot and ginger, and crackers.
