Drinking Turmeric ( cold remedy, sadly not a fancy cocktail)

 I have spent the last week battling a cold and as my mother often insists whenever anyone in the family is sick, I have had a glass of turmeric every night. Yes, it take some getting used to but I think it actually works and my throat felt like it healed up a little faster than usual. A tiny bit of internet research shows ( here and here and here)  that there are a lot of people who agree with my mother. For one thing it is known to reduce inflammation ( which is probably what helped my throat) but other sources encourage you to make it a daily habit, unlikely for me, between the taste and the price I can't completely justify it. As a cold remedy however I am pretty sold. Here is how I drink it. One spoon of turmeric powder dissolved in about half a cup of hot water, then I mix in a spoon of honey and finally I add some juice, I like orange juice but apple juice is also said to be nice.

Reading notes: why we think food = love

I have had a pretty long and trying week and there were a couple moments that only fried food could redeem but the truth is that for me real comfort after a long day is a meal shared with loved ones. Which is why this week I returned to read this great NPR article about how human brains evolved to equate food with love.  The articel's inclusion of cute example of  bonobos sharing salad makes it well worth the read but what strikes me is the emphasis on shared food as love, even the comfort of the memory of shared food.  I completely embrace the idea that comfort food might be a shared meal instead of hurriedly eaten, instantly regretted junk food binge. 

Reading Notes: I was wrong about porridge.

Years ago a friend and I had a  brief but memorable argument about porridge. I had  used porridge as a way to describe someone who we both thought was sort of dull and predictable. She loved porridge and couldn't believe I was using it as a synonym for boring. This article by NPR's Kitchen Window program tips the argument well in favor of my friend. Not only does it work to eloquently redefine my understanding of what constitutes porridge but it offer some seriously tempting porridge recipes including a tropical amaranth porridge with coconut milk, mango and ginger that sounds amazing. Here is the wonderfully evocative first paragraph that I hope will make you want to read the rest of the article.

"Porridge doesn't get a lot of love and respect. It's the fairy tale stuff of Goldilocks, or the pauper gruel of Oliver Twist. But really, porridge can be a beautiful thing, especially during the cold slog of winter. It's a comforting way to start the morning, a nice warm hug of a breakfast. And, dare I say, it actually can be kind of exciting."

Lunch on a snowy day: Bathup

 Yesterday morning we woke up to a Thimphu covered in a thick white blanket of snow. Unusual not because we don't ever get snow but because usually we see a light snowfall that melts almost as soon as it settles. This time the snow came down so thick and heavy and that is stayed all day into the next one. My facebook and twitter were full of people's photos of the snow including snowmen, snow-women and even one snow-buddha. My mother and my brother, Sonny took the opportunity to make and serve up a typical Bhutanese cold weather meal: Bathup or soup with homemade noodles.

 Below are the assembled ingredients minus the homemade noodles. To left you see a basket of chopped leafy greens (my mother likes to use mustard greens but any other leaf green is likely to work), onions, garlic , ginger and some potato. Potato is not a standard Bathup ingredient but my
mother likes the way it melts in the soup to give it a lovely thick consistency. To the right are salt, chili power, sichuan pepper ( or thingay in Dzongkha) and of course bones.  Bones are critical to making a savory and hearty stock for the noodles. My mother puts everything ,except the greens and  thingay (that goes into the soup absolutely last) into a pressure cooker, adds a tiny bit of vegetable stock powder and lets it all cook until the bones are completely cooked.

In the meantime Sonny prepares the dough to make the noodles. To make the mixture he blends two parts of atta ( or whole wheat flour) with half a part of maida ( or white flour) and warm water.  The mixture of flours gives the noodle a nice texture. Below you can see the kind of consistency

that you need to aim for.

The flour is then rolled out and Sonny used a serrated pizza cutter to slice the dough into noodles. He also used the straight edge of a salad serving soup to make straight and consistently sized noodles.

The cut noodles are kept in a bowl that has flour in it and tossed regularly ( ideally with each addition of newly cut noodles) to keep the noodles from sticking together or clumping.

Once the meat it judged to be cooked, its time to add the chopped mustard greens. These are stirred into the soup and the pressure cooker is now left open and used like a regular cooking pan.



Once the soup comes to a boil again its time to add the homemade noodles. Sonny is careful not to stir too vigorous as this might ruin the noodles. He gently stirs in the noodles, makes sure all of them  are completely submerged in the soup. 



Now its time to add the thingay. My mother has had some thingay sitting on the warm stove as the soup was made  ( not over a lit flame but just sitting out on the stove )  so that they are lightly toasted. Now she crushes them into a coarse powder before adding it to the soup.

As a final touch my mother chops some green onion directly into the soup before serving.

And there you have it, the perfect snowy day meal!

Cold weather and tingmos

 

In my mind cold weather can only mean one thing food wise, comfort foods! This week there was a sudden cold snap  and in response my mother made one of the most widely eaten Himalayan comfort foods- tingmo or tingmomo. Tingmo for the uninitiated is a sort of steamed bread that can be used to soak up everything from soup to curries to spicy pickle. I have heard it called the Himalayan version of white bread.  When it comes out right, its wonderfully soft and fluffy and just a tiny bit greasy. My mother uses a standard white bread dough recipe with salt and yeast to make her tingmo ( thought I know other recipes out there sometimes call for sugar and soda). She mixes and kneads the dough and then leaves it in a covered bowl to rise a little. It will eventually be cooked in a the same kind of steamer  as we use to make the fancier, better known Himalayan dumplings, momos.

 

The bottom most pan of the steamer will be filled with the water that will steam the tingmos. As it cooks the tingmos this water will become wonderfully greasy and tasty so that it actually can be made into a lovely soup to eat with the tingmos. So while I grease each layer of the pan my mother chops and fries onions and ginger before adding various chopped vegetables, whatever you have on hand, in this case it was cabbage, beans ,some potato and then of course she adds salt and water.

 











 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next my mother works on further soften the dough by folding in more butter. Here is a photographic representation of  how she does this: 

1. She spreads chunks of butter onto rolled out dough

2. Then she cuts into the rolled out dough











3. She uses the cut to roll the dough











4. She roll, roll, rolls until she has a cone like shape











5. The she punches the dough back down so that it called be rolled out again











6. She repeats all this from the top a couple more times until she is confident that her dough will make the softest, fluffiest, yummiest tingmo.

Now it time to start shaping the tingmos and steaming them. My mother once again rolls out the dough and then she rolls the dough up, as seen below until she gets a long thin tube of dough.



 She then uses a knife to cut circular slice off the tube. She then gently pulls on either end of the slice and joins it together, as seen below














And now they are ready to be placed in the steamer. Here are the tingmos before they are steamed.

 

And here they are once they are steamed .

And here they are served and ready to eat. In this case with some of the soup made in the same steamer and a tomato sauce made with generous amounts of chilli, onion and garlic with a little cheese added at the end.