Momo Mania!

After eating copious amounts of Momo's in the last few weeks here in Pokhara, some of the volunteers asked me if I could write the recipe down for them so they could make their own. I did one better!

Harriet busy smashing up the garlic

I set up Momo Making lessons! After a hard week at work, we headed down to Silk Road, one of our favourite hangouts and took over their kitchen. Lalit and Maila the chefs there were brillant at showing us what to do.

Traditionally Momo's are a Tibetan dish, but they are also very common here in Nepal. For those of you who haven't tried them before, they are similar to Chinese Dumplins.

After carefully chopping up the veg, preparing the dough and mixing the garlic and coriander in with the meat we then had to make the parcels. It is surprisngly difficult to get the momos into the perfect shape, Maila and Lalit made it look very easy, but believe me, it's not! After a few trys we were starting to get the hang of it.

Maila our chef showing us how it is done. He made it look much easier than it actually is

We opted to make 'Buff' (Water Buffalo) ones with a chilly sauce. Once they were all finished and in their parcels, they then get steamed to cook the meat inside.

Although I am slightly biased, I have to say, I haven't had Momo's that good in a very long time!

If you want to make your own, you will need :

Everyone getting stuck in

Ingredients:

1. Wrapper: 

• Plain flour (2 cups)
• Water

     2.  Filling:

• Minced meat - 500 gms (Can be chicken, buff or pork)
• Minced Onions
• 1 tbsp Crushed ginger
• 1-2 tbs Crushed Garlic
• Coriander chopped
• 2 Green Chillies
• Salt to taste
• Garam Masala
• 2 tbs. Oil

If you fancy learning to cook Nepali style, come and join PoD in Nepal. 

Swimming lessons on the Lake!

On the afternoon of the 13th August, we got the late news that there was going to be a holiday the next day. So we decided it would be a nice idea to take all the children from the Street Kids Rehabilitation Center out for the day.

Trekking through the jungle

After a disasterous start (trekking through the jungle in search of a waterfall which turned out to be a tap!), we headed down to the lake. The children were VERY excited about this, it was hard to control them not to jump in as soon as we got there. With Ama (the mother of the center) and a few others standing on the side watching over, and the rest of us in the water being life guards, they were off!!

We all had so much fun! The younger ones stayed by the edge, spalashing us and jumping in from the bank and the older ones were determined to learn to swim. By giving them alittle bit of instruction and support they picked it up really quickly and were soon swimming well out of theit depth! Keeping a close eye on them, they got stronger and stronger.

Ashmita and Roland having a game iof pat-a-cake whilst in the water

 After an hour we were all feeling a little tired so we jumped out for a few mintues to have a banana and a few biscuits. We were then greeted by the Chairman of the center who heard what we were doign and wanted to come down to see! He was really impressed how much confidence they had and asked if we could start brining them down on a regualr basis to teach them to swim.

Chrissy giving swimming lessons to some of the older ones

We spend a lot of time with these children at their home, usually after school helping with their homework, preparing the evening meal and playing football, skipping etc, but is was so nice to see these kids outside of the center, carefree and really having a wonderful time! A great day by every standard for the children and the volunteers.

And it's a hello from me...

Hello and Namaste! My name is Chrissy, and I will be taking over the role of Volunteer and Charity manager. I am originally from the UK and have been living in Nepal for the passed 4 years doing a variety of things, but this is my first time living in Pokhara. I'm very excited to get to know Pokhara and the surrounding areas better. Over the next few weeks I will be visitng all our child care placements, teaching placements and sports coaching placements and meeting all our brillant volunteers. Please feel free to contact me if anyone has any Nepal related questions. I'm really looking forward to having all our volunteers out over the next few months and my year with PoD!

Mr 2010, trekking in the Annapurna Range.