Hot Laphing

This weekend, I went to visit Tashi Jong for my first social visit in more than a year.  Of course, I went in large part to visit my friend Sonam, the one who taught me how to make the Summer Chili that I posted very early on in this history of this blog.  Sonam and her sister are absolutely amazing cooks.  I think I eat more when I visit them than any other time in India, except when I visit certain restaurants in New Delhi.

Anyway, not long after I arrived, one heckuva storm hit, knocking out power. This meant we had nothing to do but cook, eat, and talk.  I ended up staying the night because of the sheer strength of the storm (which is always a pleasure with Sonam's family) and I took that time to interrogate her about some of my favorite dishes from her home.  For now, I will just post the recipes. I hope to post a photo guide when I get back to the states.  So let's start with the most unique dish I've ever had at her home, one I've never had anywhere else and I've been craving in the two years since I first tried it: Hot Laphing.  It's a unique mix of Chinese influence in Tibetan cooking!

Now, I've made a Laphing post before, however this starts with a completely different kind of laphing entirely, so be ready for something completely different.

Sonam's recipe started off with "buy one block of white laphing," but for most of us not living in a few specific countries in Asia, that's not possible. Fortunately, white laphing is very simple to make, unlike it's yellow sibling. I'll dedicate a post to white laphing and it's accompanying sauces later, but making the laphing itself is quite simple so let's start with that.

White Laphing (Without Sauce)
1 package of Mung Bean flour (available at most asian groceries)
Water

Take a very large pot on the stove, fill it about half way with water, get that going to a boil.

Meanwhile, take a pitcher and mix the mung bean flour and water until you have a liquid that looks like and has the consistency of light cream.

Slowly, and while stirring, pour the "cream" into the boiling water until you have an odd, gelatinous mess that is mostly clear, but slightly white-ish, like ice. It should not be white.  It should be distinctly translucent.  If it is white, the concentration of mung bean flour is too high and it will have a nasty consistency.


Here is a picture of finished white laphing (the blue is because it is under a tent).  Your gelatinous mess should be slightly-slightly more clear than this:

(Not my photo! So, credit where credit is due)

Once you have your weird gelatin, pour that into a wide tray, I usually use a cake pan, and let it cool and set.  This should take roughly an hour in a cake pan, less if you refrigerate it, and more if you use a deeper pan.  There you go! Laphing!

So now, what we use it for...

Hot Laphing
A large chunk of white laphing (say 2 cups per person), cut into 1" cubes
Vegetable oil
Finely chopped garlic
Meat, cut into bite sized pieces OR vegetables cut into bite sized pieces (less traditional and FAR less flavorful)
Erma/Hua Jiao (Sichuan peppercorns, mentioned at length here) finely ground-a few pinches
MSG (optional)-a large pinch
Salt to taste
Chili powder to taste
Sesame oil
Green onion, chopped

In a pot or pressure cooker, boil up the meat/veg in as little water as you can use to get it to boil.  We don't want to lose any flavor with excess water and we will be using the boiling water.  Just boil it for a minute or two, maximum.

In a large pot, heat up a few teaspoons of vegetable oil (enough to coat the bottom). When that's hot, toss in the garlic and stir until the garlic has browned and the oil has picked up the garlic aroma

Now add the meat/veg and when the oil has stopped sputtering, add some of the water from boiling (approx 1/3 cup per serving. NO MORE.  In fact it's better to go with less and you can add more later!)

Add powdered erma to taste, a pinch of MSG, salt to taste, chili powder to taste and let this cook together for a little while (a few minutes is all it needs).

Gently add the laphing, piece by piece.  Stir gently. It will break up a bit, but you don't want to break it up completely.  Break as little as possible. When the laphing is all stirred in, drizzle with sesame oil and sprinkle the green onion over this.  Give that a gentle stir to mix it in.

There you go! A super quick meal that is absolutely delicious!

Quick Tenthuk

So, I'm in Taiwan with a terrible cold right now. As evening rolled around, and I was completely exhausted and coughing, I had the question of did I want to go out and get dinner, which would involve turning myself into a functional, multilingual human being, go outside into the terrible heat, walk at least half a mile to go to a restaurant, or was I going to cook at home. Well, I wanted something for a cold, so I decided to make my go-to comfort food: Tenthuk.

Now, I have already posted the most traditional tenthuk recipe that I know, but that recipe takes a long time to prepare. It's very rare that your average person outside of Tibet takes the long time involved to make that meal. So the following recipe can be made, start to finish, in less than half an hour. Which is roughly the amount of time I was able to remain conscious. There are no photographs because I was having enough trouble figuring out whether I had added soy sauce or chinese black vinegar to the soup. Fortunately, it was soy sauce.

I made this for one (myself), ate two midsized bowls of it and the rest (I'd say about 1/3 of what I made) is in the fridge, so I would say I made the right amount. As a result, the amounts will seem like very little.

Ingredients:

2 cups Flour

Water

Vegetable oil

1/4 lb of beef, cut thin, one inch pieces.

half a medium sized tomato, chopped

1/4 of a large white onion (or one half of a small white onion!) chopped

1/4 inch of ginger root, finely minced (I went overboard with the ginger. It was delicious)

1 clove of garlic, crushed and minced

2-3 sprigs of scallions, roughly chopped

handful of greens of your choice (optional. I didn't have any. I recommend baby spinach)

soy sauce to taste

salt to taste

chili powder to taste

First, make your dough. Like a lot of the dough described previously, mix flour and water until you get a stretchy, but not terribly sticky ball of dough. You will need to knead it and experiment with how much flour and water. I never get it right on the first try. When you have this big ball of dough, separate it into small balls, about half the size of a fist. pour a little bit of oil over these and roll them around until they are lightly coated in oil. Cover this. If you haven't chopped your meats and vegetables and stuff, you might as well do it now. The dough does well to wait a bit, but it's not too necessary.

Take a pot and put it on the stove, heat up a bit of oil and start to fry up your meat. Stir this around a bit and add a sprinkling of salt. When the oil has picked up some meaty flavor, dump in the garlic, ginger, onions and tomatos. When I don't feel ready to fall down, I add the garlic and ginger first and fry that a bit before adding the others. Give me a break, I am sick and this is faster.

When the tomatos and onions have reduced, add water until you have about 2/3 your desired soup volume. Now add salt and soy to taste.

While this is boiling up you can add chili, if you like, or any other spices you want. Although my version is pretty traditional, don't hesitate to tweak it to your personal tastes!

When the soup is boiling and flavored as you like it, take a dough ball and roll it into a snake-like coil.

For this next step, you may need to add some oil to your fingertips. Take the dough coil and pinch it between your fingers to make a long tape, around 1 inch wide, and 1/8 of an inch thick or even thinner. Tear pieces off (about 1 inch by 1 inch) into the boiling soup. Stir occasionally. Continue until all the dough is gone, or until you have enough noodles. You can freeze the remaining dough for later.

The dough will need only a couple of minutes to boil. Remember to stir occasionally so the noodles don't stick.

As this is coming to a boil, toss in the scallions and greens. They should take only a minute to cook. When the greens have reduced or the scallions have slightly changed color, your soup is ready to eat! Enjoy!