Cooking classes

Well, after having spent in Nepal more than 4 months and having got addicted to their food, we (with the Spanish volunteer) decided that our skills for cooking real Nepali dishes need to be improved and it’s not enough anymore to be able to cook dal bhaat (the lentil soup with rice) or aloo parotha (the bread filled with potato), but we cannot go home without learning the real and original recipe of my favourite Nepalese dish, the momo.

So this is how we ended up attending a whole afternoon-long cooking class with Socialtours. Well, the afternoon absolutely wasn’t spent useless: imagine that we went to the market together with our Nepalese chef, selected the best items for our momo, after which we started cooking – of course we had to actively participate in this part – and at the end, we even had a nice lunch / dinner of the momos that we just prepared.

Ok, it sounds pretty easy, right? But the truth is that the process included quite some challenges for us, already starting with chopping the vegies (cabbage and onion). Well, when they say ‘chop the veggies fine’, you have to imagine something that almost looks like a sauce or some minced veggies. While we were struggling with this for quite some time, our chef’s hand moved so fast with the knife that you could hardly see it – and just like magic, truly fine vegies were lying under it in a minute. Probably this is why it’s not us who is giving cooking classes – I thought. After all the chopping, learning about the different kinds of spices, and getting to know that momo sauce actually includes a lot of roasted peanuts, the next challenge was faced. It was time to actually form the momos – we learnt two different shapes, the one that is round and the one that looks more like a moon. Again, the process that seemed so natural and easy under the hands of our ‘teacher’ turned out to be a little more difficult for us, as a result of which we had quite a few interesting, ‘modern shaped’ momos.

By the way, we were preparing two different kinds of momos: the most usual veg momos, and another type that was probably more designed for European taste than Nepalese – spinach cheese momo. This latest one I have never tried before, but it’s for sure that this won’t be the last time I ate, because it’s one of the best things I have ever tried! The taste of the spinach mixed with some yak cheese and garlic perfectly match each other! Anyway, we even had a surprise momo, too: when we were all finished with preparing our veg and spinach-cheese momos, our chef brought out a piece of Snickers chocolate, cut it up and formed small balls from it to have a very special filling for the last few momos.

The best part only came after this: when we finally got to try the sometimes strange shaped, but delicious results of our work of the afternoon.

It was a really great experience, no I will just have to try all the process all alone, once I get home. Even if it’s something very touristic, I would absolutely recommend these cooking classes to everybody who is looking for a fun and ‘tasty’ afternoon in Kathmandu! :)