Cooking with Gaya!

Although it is deep winter here in Mongolia, there are still travellers who visit my country - mainly they come on the Trans-Mongolian train. I have just had Yvette and Alison to stay, two students from Australia who are studying in Shanghai. They came to Kharkhorin on December 22nd and I tried tomake sure they had the warmth of Christmas.

My guesthouse in the snow

I very much enjoy cooking and love to teach my guests how to cook Mongolian food. One of the easiest dishes I teach is Mongolian buuz or dumplings. Here in Mongolia we mainly eat them filled with mutton but I like to teach how to make vegetarian dumplings as well.

Some made by me, some by my guests. Can you guess which is which?

You can try making them at home. They are very delicious - especially with some chilli sauce or some Korean kimchi.

First, thinly cut or mince cabbage,carrots.red and green peppers and potatoes (if you're making them with meat then the meat has to be in very very small pieces). You can add any vegetables that you like but this is what I can easily buy in Kharkhorin.

Add few some onions and you can also add some steamed rice.

Then flavour them with some salt and other appetizer. After that mix well. The cabbage will emit some soup when some salt is added so it is unnecessary to add any water.

Try and slice the vegetables as thinly as you can

Mix flour and water together until you get a dough and then cover your dough to relax for 20 minutes. After that roll your dough then cut it off into pieces all the same size. Roll out the dough nto mini circles - this is where you will put your prepared vegetables or meat. After that.  nip the edge of your rolled out dough.

This bit can be a little difficult!

At last steam your buuz for 20 minutes on a medium heat. You can make a lot of dumplings as they an be saved in the freezer!

If you like the sound of learning how to make Mongolian food, my ger guesthouse is open to all travellers. Please just get in touch - I am happy to help and would love to welcome you to Kharkhorin and to teach you.

Thank you for spending time on my blog. I will be back soon.

Saikhan Amraarai, Gaya