{"id":4784,"date":"2012-01-19T21:06:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T04:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eataspen.com\/blog\/?p=4784"},"modified":"2012-01-19T21:06:42","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T04:06:42","slug":"momo-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/momo-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"MOMO Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Princess's Plate by Ali Berkley Margo<\/p><\/div>\n

Ringing in the holidays with a little MOMO Madness
\n<\/strong>by Ali Berkley Margo<\/p>\n

IT\u2019S HARD TO SWALLOW THE FACT THAT MY HUSBAND IS A BETTER COOK THAN ME. Don\u2019t get me wrong: he\u2019s nice about it. Whenever I cook diner he\u2019ll eat every bite and say, \u201cIt\u2019s good, honey,\u201d but only when I ask, \u201cHow is it?\u201d first.<\/p>\n

The problem is, as soon as he\u2019s done eating he\u2019ll get up and cook something else\u2014usually something that suits his Midwestern, Minnesotan born-and-bred palate, like sausage and eggs or what he likes to call \u201cpoor man\u2019s French toast\u201d which is toast and butter drenched in maple syrup. It\u2019s painful to watch.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true I prefer healthier dishes that maybe don\u2019t satisfy his larger-than-life appetite. But when he gets in the kitchen, I can see why he\u2019s not blown away by my skills. In more ways than one, he\u2019s a tough act to follow.<\/p>\n

Never was that more true than over the holidays, when I had one failed baking attempt after another. (Yes, that was after I wrote about how horrible I am at baking in the last blog, so thanks for paying attention). But ever since I got married I\u2019ve had an almost demented desire to put on an apron and get flour all over it. Plus, I love the way it makes the house smell.<\/p>\n

After giving me the morning to make my little mess, Ryan took over the afternoon. We go the idea to make Momos, Nepalese dumplings we discovered at the Pine Creek Cookhouse for a Christmas dinner party we were to attend that night. A backcountry restaurant deep in the mountains just outside Aspen, the Pine Creek Cookhouse is only accessible by cross-country ski and snowshoe trails (or, if you want to throw down the dough, a horse-drawn sleigh). The reward for the effort it takes to get there is always that first dish of Momos, ordered as an appetizer and served fresh and hot with a spicy tomato dipping sauce. Nothing warms the toes and the belly like this rich, spicy, dish, seasoned with herbs from another mountainous land on the other side of the world. Still, nothing is lost in its translation.<\/p>\n

Our other inspiration was the several pounds of ground elk that reside in our freezer, elk that my husband hunted for himself out in the woods. We figured elk, buffalo, what\u2019s the difference? And we were right. We\u2019ve found almost any beef recipe can be substituted with elk, and this is no exception.<\/p>\n

What impressed me the most was Ryan made the dough for the dumplings from scratch. It\u2019s as simple as mixing equal parts water and flour and forming it into a ball and letting it sit for 30 minutes. The meat mixture included a fragrant combination of Indian spices like curry, turmeric, nutmeg, cilantro, ginger, coriander, red onion, green onion, and radishes. The fun part was rolling out and forming the dough. Ryan did the rolling and I did the stuffing and folding. I even put little fork marks around the edges to make it look all fancy and professional and real.<\/p>\n

I improvised on the dipping sauce since we did not have all the ingredients the recipe for Hot Tomato Achar, the sauce that looked closest to what we\u2019ve had at PCC called for. The recipe was also fairly involved and time consuming so I had no choice but to come up with a quicker fix. I basically threw what tomatoes we had left into a blender with green onions, garlic, soy sauce, and vinegar. The mixture was too liquidy and too sour so I added ketchup (cheating, I know) and some raspberry jalape\u00f1o chipotle jam we bought on a recent trip to Santa Fe. That helped thicken it up, but it was still too sour, so I added a couple tablespoons of sugar and that did the trick. I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s what they\u2019re talking about when they say \u201cseason to taste.\u201d<\/p>\n

We steamed them in a bamboo steamer for 15 minutes. Served as an appetizer for a Christmas dinner at a friend\u2019s house in Aspen, the momos were a huge hit. The texture of the dumplings was perfect\u2014not to thick or sticky, but still gooey and steamy and warm. The meat mixture was aromatic and a taste of the Far East. Combined with the sauce, it hit every note: sour, sweet, savory and spicy. The flavors lingered long enough to be accounted for.<\/p>\n

The best part is they freeze easily and we gave our hosts a bag full as a little parting gift and kept another batch for ourselves. They don\u2019t even need to be defrosted. Just throw them over some hot water and steam.<\/p>\n

We realize we\u2019re pretty unconventional and balking tradition with this dish on a serious holiday like Christmas, but from now on, we\u2019re replacing Ho Ho Ho with a little Momo-mo.<\/p>\n

Have you ever tried to make dumplings from scratch? Please post your recipes and comments here.<\/em><\/p>\n

View\u00a0Momo Recipe<\/a><\/p>\n

View\u00a0Hot Tomato Achar Recipe<\/a><\/p>\n

Read other articles in series.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IT\u2019S HARD TO SWALLOW THE FACT THAT MY HUSBAND IS A BETTER COOK THAN ME. Don\u2019t get me wrong: he\u2019s nice about it. Whenever I cook diner he\u2019ll eat every bite and say, \u201cIt\u2019s good, honey,\u201d but only… by Allison Berkley Margo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[177,437,449],"class_list":["post-4784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","tag-cooking","tag-princess-plate","tag-recipe","author-ali-berkley-margo","misc"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1aUGV-1fa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}