All About Momos.

Our recent stay in Australia gave us several opportunities to taste the local cuisine, mainly cafe food, and we found it a delight.  The ingredients are always fresh and have wonderful flavour. The breads are crisp and light - no doughy white sandwiches where we ate - just Turkish bread, thinner that ours here in NZ and covered in sesame seeds that positively crackle with flavour when toasted.

Where ever we chose to eat, in a shopping mall, or in a little sea-side bar, the standard was the same - generous portions,  fresh flavours and a minimum of mayo - just enough to add  interest  and to hold the ingredients together.  In the Robina Shopping Mall near Burleigh Heads, we had lunch at one of those cafes that are sited in the middle of the concourse.  The noise was abysmal and the crowds were huge, but we decided to eat there anyway.  We were so glad that we had done so.  We each ordered a "melt",  one with grilled chicken and basil pesto, one with chorizo, red onion and tomato and one with bacon, tomato and onion.  Naturally, each came with a topping of melted cheese and a small salad garnish.  Each was delicious,  with plenty of well-cooked topping and just the right amount of soft, tasty cheese oozing over it all.  Accompanied by a reasonable coffee, they were just right for a light lunch and in fact, we returned for the same a few days later.  So - hats off to Australian casual eateries.  They are great!

Making momos at Eumundi Markets in Queensland, Australia.

One of the most interesting new tastes for me was that of momos -  the dumplings of Tibet and Nepal.  We ate these at a large and extremely interesting  market we visited while up in North Queensland.  This market comes highly recommended and is held twice weekly in a small town called Eumundi.   This new food experience consisted of a  plate of Tibetan dumplings, stuffed with, among other things, organic tofu, carrot and cabbage. (You can see the complete list of ingredients on the board in the photograph.)  They were steamed or deep-fried (no residual oil, either) and were bursting with clean, uncomplicated flavours.


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Try making momos using the ingredients above.
They taste great!


Served with thick slices of crisp cucumber, soy,  and chilli dipping sauce they struck just the right note, in the heat,  for a casual lunch under the trees.  These are basically quite simple to put together and are a lot of fun make with your family. They can be made with any meat or as a vegetarian dish and each has its own charm. So suit your momos to your audience!  The video below, shows the basic method of making these tasty treats.

Cooking in our Kitchen

M does a lot of the cooking in our home. He started years ago when he worked just around the corner from where we lived, thus arriving home a couple of hours before me in the evening.  He was also contracted to work only 3-4 days each week, giving him the opportunity to become a real 'house-husband' to do the school trips and concerts and a great deal of the ferrying back and forth.
At work, I used to say, jokingly, "What I need is a good wife at home!" and all without planning, that is just what I did have.

The scene of the crime!

Over the years, he became quite adventurous and along with the Auto magazine, Cuisine started to appear around the house and cookery books became the gift of choice for birthdays and Christmas.  He undertook to plan the meal when we had guests and progressed from producing just the main course, leaving me to do starter and dessert, to completing the whole repast, for better or for worse.  I was quite happy about this, as I was cooking in our cafe at the time and the last thing I wanted to do when I arrived home exhausted, was to be a 'domestic goddess'.  Eventually, though this phase of our lives came to an end and we were just the two of us, doing 9-5 jobs so we would cook together in the evening and very good it was too.  The luxuries were suddenly affordable and we sure ate some fantastic food, not to mention the meals we ate out.

Then, my mother came to live with us and it was back to more conventional stuff - no more Thai or Indian, but lots of French cutlets, small pieces of fillet steak and tiny cuts of pork. All things to tempt her failing appetite in the hopes of providing good nourishment along with low calories.  (We had to balance out all the chocolate she had hidden around her part of the house!!)  So - I would come home from work and prepare the vegetables and M would come in later,just in time to 'take over' and cook the meat. This is a man thing, definitely.  Over the years, I have managed to avoid a great deal of mundane cooking by suggesting a barbecue (which, of course as a woman, I just cannot manage at all! Duh!)

In subsequent years, since my mother died, and ignoring the wonderful cruises we have been on and the travelling we have done, our diets have been relatively different. In a nutshell,  M cooks himself luscious dishes with rich cream and butter-laden sauces, fabulous food with all the trimmings.  I, who have the same problem as all my family, have elected to eat a sensible diet that revolves around small amounts of protein (often of the chicken variety) with steamed vegetables, plenty of fruit and whole grain bread.  I find it is much easier if, at least on a few nights each week, we just cook for ourselves, thus avoiding firstly, accusations of diet-sabotage and secondly, the total temptation of eating what he cooks because it is easier and it is highly desirable and it is THERE!

BBQ of Prawns on Pesto Polenta
with Baby Leaf Salad, Balsamic
Reduction.
Yum!
Made by M!

Reading back over this, it does sound as though I really do not enjoy cooking and take every opportunity to avoid it. This is probably a fair assessment on a day to day basis.  The constant effort to feed a family year after year, day in, day out.   To keep it interesting, from toddler to teens, when the competition is often Mc.............. or other such delicacies. To keep it appealing and yet healthy and affordable.  To arrange it so that it your menus are easily prepared after a hard day's work and will not suffer from your running a taxi service for the kids......
I can tell you - I really appreciated having my 'wife at home' husband in disguise'

What I do enjoy are the following; eating what M has cooked, checking out beautiful new kitchen equipment, trying out new recipes that involve learning a new skill, (don't care if only M and I eat the results), reading of the history of cooking, learning techniques of cooking and food preparation and coming to an understanding of the chemistry of cooking. I hope you will share my enthusiasm!