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Published: September 4th 2014
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As we are going to be in Nepal for 3 years, Alex thought it would be a good idea to send me on a cooking course so I learn how to cook a good curry! After searching around we came across this cooking course
http://nepalicookingcourse.com/that is the best rated activity in Kathmandu according to TripAdvisor. A phone call later it was sorted, (from what I could gather) I was going on Monday morning for 3 hours of Nepali cooking.
After trying and failing to establish where I was going to meet Amrit, He suggested the best plan was for me to get into a cab and get the taxi driver to call him to find out where to go. This worked and I was dropped off Asan square, in the heart of the old town Asan square is the local market and is the one of the best places to source fresh local produce. This is where I met Amrit and he proceeded to show me around describing all the local seasonal produce and also some special sights of the area. As the previous day had been a festival (Janai Purnima), there was several unique things that were special to
festival that were still on sale. One of them being a mix of 8-10 different of beans that go into a curried soup called Kwati.
After arriving at Amrit's house he introduced me to his daughter Anu, who would be teaching me how to cook Nepali and his son David who's job title was official photographer. We first started with Momo's, a traditional dumpling that has many different varieties of filling. The ones we made filled with a combination of Cabbage, Potato, Carrot, Chinese radish and spices. The filling is placed into the center of flat disk of dough and then the dough is folded around the filling. Anu taught me several different ways of folding the dough mixture, getting more intricate as we progressed. After trying and failing I kept to the most basic of folding techniques as this seemed to work for me.
We the moved onto Alu Paratha or bread filled with mildly spiced potato. This was my favorite of the foods we cooked as it was easy to prepare as well as tasting great. You start by making a basic dough of flour and water, divide the dough up into palm shaped amounts that
then you add a small amount of potato filling to the center of the dough. You then fold the dough around the potato and roll the whole thing out until you have a flat roundish shaped bread with potato in the middle. It is then fried on a flat plate until golden brown.
One of the things that we picked up in the market that morning was a combination of Wheat flour, Garlic, and other ingredients pressed into a cylindrical shape about 8 cms long. They were snapped in half and then thrown into a Wok filled with oil. The pieces only needed 5 seconds before they doubled in size and were cooked. Amrit described them as a quick treat for children to keep them happy. It was slightly terrifying frying these as they doubled in size and spat hot oil at you while you tried to get them out. They had a crunch but not much flavor to them so weren't that enjoyable.
For the main dish in Nepal it is traditional to have a curried vegetable mixture, Daal (curried lentils) Baht (rice) and several different small potions of mixed pickled vegetables. At Amrit's because of Janai
Purnima being the previous day, they had an excess of the bean mixture that had been soaked for 3 days so we cooked Kwati instead of Daal. For the curried vegetable mixture we cooked a combination of Potato, Okra, Green beans, and this seasonal vegetable called Nigro. Nigro is the small shoots of a local fern and is only available in the monsoon season. It was snapped into 3cm pieces, in the same way that you snap asparagus to make sure you don't get any tough bits. For the pickle we had Lasuna Saag (garlic spinach) this was prepared with raw garlic so was extremely strong but was very tasty. The whole affair is meant to be eaten with you right hand, but I haven't been brave enough to do this yet. And was the odd one out as Amrit, Anu, and David were all eating with their right hand.
By this stage I had eaten Momos and Alu Paratha so wasn't too hungry but after smelling the smells from my plate and knowing what had gone into it I couldn't wait to try it. It was very delicious, or as they say in Nepali, Swadilo. For desert it
was a rice pudding Nepali style with added spices of roasted fenugreek, cardamon, nutmeg and black pepper. By now I was completely stuffed with all this delicious Nepali food.
The whole cooking course was a fun filled affair and I did learn a lot of new techniques and tasty recipes. It has meant that I am now able to cook a good curry at home with some delicious Alu Paratha on the side.
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