How Did A Tibetan Delicacy Called ‘momo’ Become Popular Amongst Indians?

By Author: Gayatri Tampi
Total Articles: 56
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Momos are quite popular a dish amongst the youngsters in the cities. Literally every food market in the city will have a cart that sells momos and you will for sure see various people, especially youngsters lining outside it to get their hands on these little stuffed dumplings that are actually a delicacy from Tibet. Just paying around twenty to thirty rupees brings you a meal that is filling for one time. This coupled up with a quick cup of coffee or tea can actually become the perfect combination that you can savour on. This tastes especially amazing when it is made one has it in the monsoon. Imagine how wonderful it would be, for you to have your mug of hot chocolate and a plate filled with chicken momos, it is a combination that is simply mesmerizing.
Let’s dive a little deeper into how these momos came along. The momos, or the stuffed dumplings that you see today primarily originated in the countries on the north eastern side of India. It is known to be originally from Tibet. Around the early 1960s, when the people from this region settled in the ...
... north east parts of India such as Ladakh, Sikkin, Darjeeling, or Dharamshaka, they brought their amazing recipe of momos with them as well. Along with the momo recipe, they brought their traditional laping, thukpa, and chexo as well but the one to stand out, was the momos. Not just because of the low cost, but also because they slowly became a lot more popular than the other.

Over the years, momos, be it in tandoori-momo form or be it in the form of chicken or vegetable-momos, they became very popular amongst the younger generation. You will see many sellers of momos outside of colleges as they are a great hit amongst the people of different ages and those who belong to different regions as well. There are so many different kinds of it available today that every person can enjoy it. There even is something known as the chocolate-momos which the kids definitely enjoy or those people who are chocolate lovers definitely will. Other kinds of momos that are very popular are the fried ones with cheese in it, ones with paneer in it and momo’s that have some exotic vegetables in it. In India, momos have now gotten their very Indianized version of the momos which makes it all the more interesting as you can even experiment with the taste.

Even today, in many cultures, momos are actually a big part of the diet, however, with a little different kind of stuffing in it such as pork in minced form, mustard leaves or even any other green vegetables if they like. Today it have become as popular as any other street side food that you might find in India.

The original momos from the Tibet are actually made from yak meat, ginger, garlic, dried chili, tomato, some cabbage and even some special kind of oil-based filling. In India though you will find momos of various kinds as mentioned earlier, with its own unique flavour and its own unique taste.

Each type of momo has its own specialty attached to it and it is to be relished, enjoyed and savored just like that. Momos are actually quite a fulfilling dish that one can have at any time of the day. Just 6 pieces of these dumplings are enough to satiate your hunger and even give you some energy if need be. Therefore, you can even choose to buy frozen-momos-online. What you can do is, that you can stock these in your freezer and then heat it the way you want, whenever you feel like having them. This way, you can have this delicacy whenever you want, however you want and at whatever time you want.

There are many brands today that have come online to make these dumplings available to you. Therefore, you can even order these momos-online and they will be delivered at your door step within a few days’ time or maybe even on the same day. If you have momos in the frozen form, you can fry it or you can choose to have tandoori momo as well.

The beauty of this cute little dumpling is that it can be enjoyed in any form that you make it. There is no specific right or wrong ingredient when it comes to making it. You can stuff in it whatever ingredients would make you happy.