Week 22 - Nepalese

My original plan for the Nepalese challenge was to make a paneer curry with some fried potatoes. That would have required a visit to a South Asian grocery store, which wasn't going to happen during the pandemic, so I decided to postpone the challenge. After looking at some more Nepalese recipes in the weeks that followed, however, I decided to just change plans and make something else with ingredients I had on hand or could easily obtain. The less challenges I needed to postpone, the greater chance I'd actually finish them when I was able to.

My new plan for the Nepalese challenge was to make vegetable tarkari, a traditional curry filled with vegetables and usually served with rice. The curry often contains potatoes, peas, carrots, and other vegetables, but in ours, I substituted tofu for potatoes. We were having some home issues at the time which meant we couldn't really leave food out on the counter, so potatoes were not an option, sadly. I don't know if tofu is typically used in this type of dish, but while googling, I did find a tofu tarkari at a Nepalese restaurant in San Francisco with tofu and green beans. To make the curry, I decided to use a recipe on Sareta's Kitchen as a starting point.

The ingredients for our version of tarkari were:

- 1 yellow onion ($0.60)

- 5-6 carrots ($0.59)

- 1-2 tbsp of chopped garlic ($0.20)

- 1 bag of frozen petite peas ($1.59)

- 1 block of firm tofu ($1.99)

- about 1 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- about 1 tbsp ginger paste ($0.20)

- about 1-2 tsp ground cumin ($0.10)

- about 2-3 tsp ground coriander ($0.10)

- about 1 tsp ground turmeric ($0.10)

- 1 can of diced tomatoes ($1.50)

- 1 cup of rice, uncooked ($1)

The total cost of dinner was about $8.17, and it made enough for the three of us for dinner, plus leftovers for another day of lunch. Very economical recipe!

The steps for our version of vegetable tarkari were:

1. Prep - dice onion, peel and chop carrots, chop garlic, thaw peas (mostly) under cold water, slice tofu.

2. In a large skillet over medium heat, add oil, and then cook the onions until softened. Add the garlic and ginger, and cook for a couple of minutes.

3. Add the carrots, and cook for a couple of minutes before adding the spices and stirring well to make sure everything is well-coated.

4. Add the tofu, and then after a couple of minutes, the peas and diced tomatoes (with juice). Stir well so everything is mixed together.

5. Cover and cook on low heat until vegetables are fully cooked, about 20 minutes. Add additional seasonings if needed. [I added more cumin and coriander.]

The vegetable tarkari was simple to make, but it just felt like it was missing something. I added more spices than the recipe called for to start with, and then added even more, but it still felt like it was on the blander side. It wasn't bad, as it mostly tasted like the vegetables it contained (which is a good thing), but I just thought it would have more flavor from the spices, especially since I tried it prior to adding the peas and tomatoes and the spices were very present. The spices didn't get much stronger the next day either when reheating the leftovers. B really liked it though, so I consider that a win.

Dhaulagiri Kitchen

When it comes to Himalayan cuisine, the place to go for years has always been Queens, more specifically Jackson Heights. Over the summer, we heard that Dhaulagiri Kitchen, a Nepali spot in Jackson Heights, was opening up in Murray Hill. Even though JH isn't really that far, it was so much easier for us to just walk over to Murray Hill, so we made our way there last fall.

There were a lot of options on the menu, but we both got platters so we could sample as much as possible. This wasn't our first time having Nepali cuisine, but we still weren't very familiar with a lot of what was on the menu. M got a thali with chicken, and A got the dhendo with goat. We didn't know what dhendo was at the time, but it looked good in the picture. Other than the meat choices and the starch in the middle of the platter, everything else that came on the platters was the same - a vegetable curry of the day (chickpeas and potatoes and something tofu-like), daal (which was green and filled with vegetables, herbs, and spices), raw vegetables, mustard greens, and various accompaniments, several of which were really spicy.

We Googled dhendo after the food arrived, and learned that it was made of buckwheat starch. It was incredibly filling, but so good with the daal and the curries and everything else on the platter. The rice was fine, but the dhendo was better. It reminded us of fufu a little bit in its texture and "flavor."

In addition to our platters, we also got some chicken momos. While these were good, they seemed fairly standard as far as dumplings go. The best part was the sauce trio that came with it (which we forgot to take a picture of). If we remember correctly, the orange one was our favorite. We recall that it was a little smoky with a little heat added in there too.

We really enjoyed our lunch at Dhaulagiri Kitchen and there is so much more we want to taste and learn about Nepali cuisine. We definitely want to return.

Sherpa

After our awesome "happy hour," we went for a late dinner. We didn't really have any destination in mind so we headed down to Leidseplein. There are so many restaurants there and it's known for having places open late, so we thought our best chance at finding something would be there.

There were so many options, many of them crowded, and then we stumbled upon Sherpa, a Nepalese-Tibetan place. It wasn't that crowded and it was different from everything else we had already eaten in Amsterdam, so we decided to try it.


There were a lot of options on the menu ranging from Tibetan pizza to different stews. I had Tibetan food in the city before at Tsampa and liked it, but had never had Nepalese food. A had neither, so this was going to be an adventure for us!


We started with mango lassis and they brought over some crackers:


Then it was on to our main courses, both of which we chose from the Nepalese side of the menu. I got chicken with spinach, and A got some lamb dish. All the dishes are served with black eyed beans, rice and salad, which you can see in the background on the table. It was good. Sorry that we don't have more color to the descriptions but it's been over 3 months now (can't believe it's been so long) so unfortunately our memories are fading...


We liked our dinner at Sherpa. We probably wouldn't make a special trip to go back on our next trip (unlike some of the others and since there's so many places to try), but if you're in the area, we recommend it. It was a nice close to the day.