Whole Wheat Tibetian Vegetable Momo Recipe | Step by Step Recipe for Veg Momos

Learn how to make Whole Wheat Tibetian Vegetable Momos ~ Steam cooked whole wheat dumpling stuffed with crispy vegetables, a delicacy from North East India

Who would have ever thought that the day will come where I will sit down to write this post?! A post about blog-anniversary! Believe it or not, Monsoon Spice just turned 9 years old. It’s been NINE YEARS since this blog was born on a lazy afternoon and I really find it difficult to digest the fact that I have stuck to blogging after all these years. With my two men army fighting nasty cold and fever, I almost missed the blog milestone. 9 years of blogging is a huge milestone for someone who strongly believes ‘change is the only constant in life’! It looks like my love and passion for food blogging has not dulled or died down even after all these years of food blogging and if anything else, my love affair with food writing, photography and blogging has grown stronger and deeper.

 It was the peak of winter in 2005 when the days were really short and the sun disappeared for days. I was a new bride in unknown city, new country and different continent and had nothing worthwhile happening in my life. After spending long hours on phone, reading books and flipping the channels on idiot box, I was still left with many more hours of solitude and boredom! I began to spend more time in kitchen to relive the husband of mine from cooking the same meal every day. Slowly I began to cook one dish after another that I learnt from my mother through our hour long telephone conversations and expanded my recipe repertoire which was limited to half a dozen recipes. After many misadventures, small kitchen accidents and blunders, I decided to document my culinary journey for posterity to have some laugh at my expense! After couple of months I decided to take a plunge and give my personal diary an online presence for amateurs home cooks like me who struggled to differentiate pigeon peas from split chickpeas and cilantro from parsley. Well, who would have imagined that the blog born out of boredom and necessity would complete 9 enjoyable years! Not me!!! Never in zillion years! It has come a long way from being amateur cooking blog to much confident and passionate cooking blog of today!

The journey of Monsoon Spice began when there were just a handful of food blogs and the mighty social networking scene was non-existence! The friendship between the bloggers was made through exchange of comments on blog posts and through emails. This established a strong community of food bloggers and built a wonderful circle of friendship. These friends, both old and new ones, I have made in the last 9 years continue to support, encourage and inspire me. I am grateful for having a strong bond of friendship that goes beyond blogging in spite of the fact that I have not met them in real world.

With over 15 million blog visitors who motivate me through their positive critiques and feedbacks, this food journey has been an exciting, educating and humbling experience. Thank you for the support, love, friendship and joy that you shower upon me which not only makes blogging fun but also enriching. Your positive comments, critiques, suggestions and feedbacks have made this virtual place a really happy place to come and share my life, thoughts, experiences and recipes. You, my readers, are really kind to listen to all my rants and rambles and continue to support this blog. 

This post is incomplete without mentioning my family, my two men army and my loved ones who happily let me share the snippets of our lives and also the family recipes that are churned in our kitchen to be shared with everyone in this virtual world. And a special thank you to all the silent and anonymous readers of this blog! I would really appreciate if you could break your silence and say ‘hello’ and make my day! Trust me, people who know me say that I am pretty harmless! ;)

The food blog Monsoon Spice has become a place where people with passion of food, spice and life come together and share their success stories peppered with some kitchen disasters :) Thank you one and all for walking with me in this adventurous, yet delightful, food journey all these 9 years. As someone quoted “I would love to thank you from bottom of my heart but for you my heart has no bottom”. Thank you, once again!

To celebrate the 9 years of food journey, I don’t have any sweet delights! The regular readers know me lacking a sweet tooth and my love for savoury food bursting with spices and flavours like these Whole Wheat Tibetian Vegetable Momos. A snack that has become synonymous with North-East Indian cooking, Momos are traditionally made using plain flour cover filled with variety of meat or veggie stuffing and steam cooked in bamboo baskets. I have moved little away from the traditional and authentic recipe by using whole wheat for the outer covering to make it healthier and have used lightly sautéed crispy vegetables flavoured with ginger and garlic and soya sauce. The outcome is simply irresistible and tongue tickling Whole Wheat Tibetian Vegetable Momo that makes it an enjoyable snack or meal loved by kids and adults alike. You can use any veggies of your choice and make it your own recipe by using any flavouring ingredients to suit your taste. Make sure to use colourful, juicy and crunchy vegetables like carrots, beans, cabbage, bean sprouts, bell peppers or eve mushrooms by lightly sautéing them for couple of minutes to get it quite crunchy which makes the momos such a delight to eat.

Whole Wheat Tibetian Vegetable Momos can be time consuming it you are making them for the very first time, but it gets better with practice. So the time required to make these momos vary depending on your experience. The ways the momos are shaped also vary and I have used a simple method to save time. These Whole Wheat Tibetian Vegetable Momos make a perfect healthy and nutritious snack option for kids and are a popular choice for party appetizers when served with some sweet chilli sauce or soya sauce.

Vegetables used in the filling

Sautéed veggie for filling

Outer cover for momo made of whole wheat flour

Step by step instruction for shaping momos

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Whole Wheat Tibetian Vegetable Momos (Steam cooked whole wheat dumpling stuffed with crispy vegetables, a delicacy from North East India)
Prep Time: 30 - 40 mins
Cooking Time: 10 - 15 mins
Recipe Level: Beginner to intermediate
Spice Level: Low
Makes: About 20 – 25
Shelf Life: Best served fresh but can be refrigerated for up to 2 days and frozen upto a month
Serving Suggestion: With sweet chilli sauce or any dipping sauce of your choice

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Ingredients:
For Outer Cover:
1½ cups Whole Wheat Flour (I have used chapatti flour/aatta)
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt (Adjust as per taste)
Water for kneading

For the Filling:
1 packed cup Cabbage, finely shredded
1 packed cup Carrot, peeled and grated
¾ cup Onion, finely chopped
1 tsp Ginger-Garlic Paste
1 tbsp Soya Sauce
1 tsp Vinegar
5-6 Black Peppercorns, crushed to fine powder (Optional and adjust as per taste)
1 tbsp Oil (I have used roasted sesame oil)
Salt to taste

Method:
Prepare the dough for outer cover:

1. Sift whole wheat flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl.
2. Add little water in parts and knead to make soft dough. Cover the dough with cling film or wet towel and let it rest for half an hour to an hour.

Prepare the vegetable filling:

1. Heat oil in a pan on a medium flame and add finely chopped onions. Stir fry the onions for a minute before adding ginger-garlic paste. Stir it until the raw smell disappears, about 30-45 mins.
2. Next add finely shredded cabbage and carrots and stir fry them on a high heat for 2-3 minutes. Don’t cook it for too long as we want to retain the crunch of vegetables.
3. Turn off the flame and transfer the stir fried veggies to a bowl. Mix in soya sauce, vinegar, black pepper powder and salt to taste. Let the mixture cool down to room temperature.

Rolling and shaping the Momos:

1. You can either roll individual wraps of 3 inch in diameter with thin edges and little thick in centre for the momos or simply roll the dough into large circle and cut them into smaller circles using a cookie cutter. I prefer the second method as it saves a lot of time and energy!
2. Pinch a medium orange sized ball and roll it on a lightly dusted surface into large 1 mm thin circle. Using a cookie cutter or a bowl/glass with sharp edge, cut out 3 inch circles.
3. Place 1-1½ heaped tsp of vegetable filling in the center and shape the momos by sealing the edges as shown above. Make sure that you seal the edges well as we don’t want the filling to ooze its liquid when we stem them. You can also shape them the authentic/traditional way by pleating the edges, but the above technique takes half the time and works best for me.
4. Place the momo in a large plate and cover it with a wet towel from drying out. Repeat the process until you are ready for steaming.

Steaming the Momos:

1. Heat water in a steamer or pressure cooker without weight as per instruction and let it come to a boil. (Read the notes in the end)
2. Lightly grease the steamer bowl/idli moulds with little oil which will help in keeping the momos from sticking. Arrange momos in a steamer/idli moulds with some space between them so that they don’t stick to each other.
3. Close the lid and allow the momos to steam cook for around 7-10 minutes on medium flame. The time to cook the momos will depend on the thickness of the outer cover. Once cooked, you will notice that the outer cover turns translucent and glossy and is not sticky to touch. Make sure not to overcook the momos as it will turn tough and chewy.
4. Once cooked, remove from the dumplings from the steamer and serve these delicious and addictive Whole Wheat Tibetian Vegetarian Momos with sweet chilli sauce or any dipping sauce of your choice. Enjoy!

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Sia’s Notes:

• Once you have added the filling, make sure that you seal the edges well as we don’t want the filling to ooze its liquid when we stem them.
• To steam the momos in a pressure cooker, pour 2-3 cups of water (about 1 inch) in the pressure cooker and bring it to boil. Place the greased steamer bowl/idli moulds with momos in the cooker and close the lid. Please remember to remove the weight/whistle before closing the lid. Steam cook the momos for 7-10 mins.
• The time to cook the momos will depend on the thickness of the outer cover. Please make sure not to overcook the momos as it will turn tough and chewy.
• Traditionally, Momos are steamed in bamboo baskets, but you can steam cook them in a regular Steamer or cooker, the way you make dhoklas or idlis.
• Once cooked, you will notice that the outer cover turns translucent and glossy and is not sticky to touch.
• Be cautious when you bite into the hot momos as the filling will be very hot with the juice released from vegetables during steaming and can burn you easily.