Chp 618. Having Vawksa Rep with TV Celebrities!

I'm truly overwhelmed to see the number of visits my previous post about pork momos got. It's good to share such experience with other people. As for me, I love pork, and in spite of my family and close friends advising me to cut down on my pork intake (I have high BP), it's something that is so damn hard to resist.

Pork is life, Pork is love. And to me, the Holy Grail of all pork is our Mizo traditional smoked pork, aka Vawksa Rep.



For those of you in Mizoram, you may not consider vawksa rep to be such a big deal, after all, you can easily get them in the market any time. But for those of us staying outside Mizoram, you have no idea how precious they are to us!

Every time we leave Mizoram, we'd take with us around 5 kgs of vawksa rep. We would love to take more, but the bloody weight limit on domestic air travel is so damn less. Now, that 5 kgs of vawksa rep hardly amounts to around 20 pieces. And we all know how fast that will get over, especially if your Mizo friends come over for dinner.

And so that is why some of us tend to remain reclusive, you know, stay away from the Mizo crowd because you gotta protect your vawksa rep. Friendships have been lost over vawksa rep, battles have been fought over that last piece of vawksa rep, and minstrels have sung about the bravery of the one who ate that last piece. :D :P

All jokes aside, in this post, I would like to write about the times I shared our vawksa rep with other people, and that too with TV celebrities! Yup, with famous TV characters. Still don't believe me? Check it out –



Here I am sharing my vawksa rep with Lucifer Morningstar himself. Yup, I'm pushing it to his face, but he's like, what human atrocity is this!? :D

Yeah, that's what I usually do when I'm at my apartment all by myself eating vawksa rep. I watch TV shows while having my lunch or dinner because I'm a huge sitcom fan. And I try to offer the TV stars vawksa rep as I watch their shows. Yeah, crazy habit indeed. If this was Instagram, you might even label this as #JustTlangvalSeniorThings :P

In the above, I was watching "Lucifer", one of my favorite new shows this year. And he's not the only one who was offered the vawksa rep. Below, you can see Olivia Pope from "Scandal" on the phone, unable to decided what is best for her - should she continue her affair with President Fitzgerald Grant or remain with Jake Ballard who is now the running mate of Senator Mellie Grant, or should she just forget all this drama and eat that juicy piece of vawksa rep being offered to her? :)



Ah, conundrum. But there's nothing Olivia Pope can't fix :)

Here we have that sad moment when Jamie Lannister did not allow King Tommen to eat the vawksa rep I offered to him, probably because Jamie didn't like the way I handed him my plate. Get it, "handed" him my plate? :P



Just look at his eyes, poor thing wanted it so badly! Rumour has it that this was the actual reason why Tommen jumped to his death from the Red Keep, and not because of the destruction of the Great Sept.

Next, you have something really funny and coincidental. I was just about to eat my delicious vawksa rep meal while watching "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver", when John Oliver suddenly spoke about David Cameron being accused of sticking his pen*s in a dead pig's mouth! Of all the bloody timing…



I immediately placed my palm over my vawksa rep because I didn't want it to see such vulgarity :D

Here, we have Raymond 'Red' Reddington from "The Blacklist" trying to decide what pissed him off more, the fact that he didn't know Elizabeth Keen was alive all this time, or that he couldn't reach out of the TV screen to eat those yummy vawksa rep in front of him :)



I wonder what the number would be, had he decided to put the vawksa rep on his little blacklist?

And now we have the 'after' photo of the same meal above. This time, I had already switched the show to "Dark Matter", hence the empty plate. "Two" is trying to figure out with "Android" where all the vawksa rep disappeared to. Was it sucked into a giant black hole? Did "One" and "Six" destroy it while fighting with each other again? And who would have guessed it was "Three" all along in the season finale!!?



Speaking of new shows this year that I really like, here is "Billions". I was hooked to this new show because of the powerful dialogues, the plot, the conniving strategies, and the fact that you can't really pick sides. Are you with Team Bobby Axelrod the hedge fund manager or are you with Team Chuck Rhoades the US Attorney? You really can't say. And of course there's Wendy Rhoades, the psychiatrist and "performance coach" played by Maggie Siff, aka Dr. Tara Knowles from "Sons of Anarchy"!



The above scene is from an earlier episode (do know that all these photos here were taken in a span of 3-4 months), and I screamed out when Axe was casually talking at backstage with James Hetfield of Metallica before their concert! And yes, they showed actual clip of their concert as well. I think the song that was playing at this part was "Ride The Vawksa Rep". :P

Billionaires and their jet set high profile life, sigh…

This next show is another favorite series of mine - "Silicon Valley". Having been a part of a Start-Up and an Incubator, including being accepted in the prestigious "Start-Up Chile Accelerator" at Chile, I could relate so much to this show.

Over here, Erlich Bachman and Big Head were probably deciding whether to fund the juicy vawksa rep lying in front of them, or to buy majority shares of Richard Hendricks' Pied Piper through their partnership firm Bachmanity :D



Now here's a super awesome TV Show - "Suits". Everybody loves Harvey Specter. He is smart, suave, gets what he wants, and he always manages to win at the end of the day. But not this time. As Mike Ross slowly walks into prison, there's nothing Harvey can do… Why? Because he's distracted by the vawksa rep lying in front of him! That's why.



Just look at his stare, the way he's not able to concentrate on his task because he knew the jury was voting "not guilty" anyway. Am so looking forward to season 6!

Next, we have "Tut". Only 3 episodes, but 1:30 hours long each, I really recommend you watch this show as well. It tells the story of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, about his childhood and his short life span achievement. Plus there is Ben Kingsley playing the role of the Grand Vizer and Sibylla Deen from "Tyrant" (Nusrat Al-Fayeed), along with a couple of "Game of Thrones" characters.



Sending off King Tut to the after-life with vawksa rep is the highest honour a pharaoh can achieve. :D

Speaking of mini-series, the next two shows I happened to watch while eating vawksa rep are on the top of my favorite all-time TV shows. First up, we have the "The Night Manager". Just six episodes long, this is one mini-series you don't wanna miss. And there is also Hugh Laurie from "House" in it! :)



As you can see from the above pic, Tom Hiddleston is fixated on the vawksa rep in front of him, while Dr. House wanted to pass some smart-ass remark about how vawksa rep can lead to lupus, except that he couldn't because he wasn't Dr. House anymore, he was an arms dealer… :P

The second show I wanted to talk about is "Narcos". This is by far my all-time favorite TV show, the best of 2015. It is a docu-drama on the life of Pablo Escobar, about how he started his notorious drugs trade and how he was finally brought down. This is one show you must not miss!



See how deep and pensive Pablo Escobar is above, thinking about how he can shove some cocaine into the vawksa rep to increase his drugs trade circulation. In a way, vawksa rep is like the cocaine he smuggled into the US - Addictive and Awesome! :)

Finally we have "Angie Tribeca".

If you love "Hot Shots", "Airplane!" and "Naked Gun" type of humor, then you're gonna love "Angie Tribeca" so much. I seriously don't remember the last time we had that kind of slapstick humor without being gross (am looking at you "Scary Movie").

So yeah, it was an honour to be eating vawksa rep while watching this show.



Apart from all these TV shows, I have many other favorites, but these were just the ones I happened to be watching while eating vawksa rep.

I hope the TV stars enjoyed the vawksa rep I offered them :D , and hoping to see more of such shows in the future (sorry, I am totally out of vawksa rep now, so there won't be such photos like the ones above for a long time).

Cheers.

Chp 617. How to make pork momos

Now let me clear a very popular misconception about momos here in India. Yes, momo is one of the traditional food of Sikkim, Bhutan, Tibet and parts of Nepal. No, momo is not the traditional food of most North-Eastern states. But yes, momo is quite popular in the North-East, just as it is popular in Delhi, Bangalore etc.

There, I've said it.

People who assume that all North-Easterners eat just momos every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner, are either displaying their low level of ignorance, or they have no sense of a healthy balance diet :P

Momos are awesome. But credit should be given where it is due, and unfortunately, it is not an indigenous origin of most North-Eastern communities. But we love it, and in Mizoram, you'll find many tea-stalls serving it as an afternoon snack (like I mentioned in this Quora article, we Mizos don't have a concept of "lunch").

The other day, my dear friend and blogger Blackestred invited me over to his pad for a pork momo dinner. And when I saw the way he made the momos, I decided to document it for my blog. So, here it is, for those of you who might be interested in making simple home-made pork momos. The process is really simple, and I'm not going to use hi-fi culinary words such as 2 tbsp, 1/4 olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon table salt and stuff. Just simple English for a simple recipe. :)

Here goes...

First of all, we need to divide the momo making process into four different parts. Think of it like how a good rock band is comprised of a vocalist, a lead guitarist, a bass guitarist and a drummer. Or in a more techie term, a scrum master dividing a project cycle into four different sprints :P

First of all, there is the meat (pork in this case), then the outer covering, followed by the chutney, and finally the soup, which is optional. Together, they form the fantastic four that we all love.


Step 1. The Pork.

Buy the raw meat from your local butcher or departmental store. The quantity depends on how much you're planning to make. No need to go all extravaganza by buying imported pork ribs or chorizo and stuff, just a normal local pig will suffice.

Put the meat in a pressure cooker and fill it up with water and cook it. That's it.

Once the pork has been cooked, take it out and wait for it to cool. DO NOT throw the water used in cooking, this will be explained in Step 4.

Cut the cooked pork into tiny tiny pieces.



Now take a few lokis and cut them up into equally tiny pieces. Usually, we use squash for this part, but since we don't get squash here in Pune, loki is the next closest thing.



Mix the tiny pieces of pork and loki really well. Add a few small pieces of ginger, garlic and onion as well, along with salt to taste.





And that is it, my friends. The meat filling is ready!


Step 2: The Dough.

Now making the outer covering is very simple. It just takes a little bit of time kneading the dough. Take maida flour, mix little amount of water, and work it, work it, work it, keep grinding until you get the desired dough.



Cut it up into small pieces and flatten it with your rolling pin.





Now you don't have to make them perfectly round. I'll explain why shortly. Just keep rolling the dough, in any damn shape that you want, and place them between sheets of newspapers to prevent them from sticking to each other.





Now take a medium-sized container cap, or anything that is not too large, and divide the flattened dough into smaller circular shapes as depicted below



And with that, the dough is now ready!


Step 3: The Chutney.

The chutney is a very important element of a momo's life-cycle, just as how sambar and coconut chutney are an intrinsic part of a dosa or idli dish. This is also quite easy to make. Now there are various ways of making chutney, with different ingredients. I believe this is one of the simplest recipes out there.



Just take a couple of dry red chillies as you can see from above, and boil them in water. I call these large red chillis "tadka chillis" because I find them in almost every tadka dish :P Also the reason why I call them by that different name is because to most of my Mainland Indian friends, when people say dry red chillies, you picture the above chillies immediately, but for us North-Easterners, our idea of a "dry red chilly" is very different - it is much smaller than the above, and twenty times hotter! :D

Simultaneously, boil a couple of tomatoes, and once done, peel the skin.



Remove the stem of the boiled chillies above and mix them with the peeled boiled tomatoes. Grind them together in a mixie. Add salt to taste, and there you have it, your awesome chutney is now ready!






Step 4: The Soup.

Remember the water used in cooking the pork?



Add some chopped coriander leaves to it. Use this same water now to steam the momos.



And that's all. You can use this as a side soup once the momos are cooked.

Now that you have all four main elements ready, time to fill up the momos!


The Actual Preparation

First, apply some oil on the steamer sieves to prevent the momos from sticking to the pan. 



Take the dough, and place small quantities of the pork mixture on it.

Now there are many ways of filling up the dough. One easy method is to close up the dough (making them stick to each other) on top. This is quicker to make, but you also end up with a lot of dough on the top.





Another method is the more common shape that we find in restaurants and roadside momo stalls, and that is closing up the dough on top in a long line.



This takes a bit more time to make and involves using both your fingers. Your fingers need to be in sync with each other as they move seamlessly in a clockwork rhythmic fashion "stitching" the dough together.

Once done, place them in the greased sieves and cook it! Like I mentioned earlier, use the same water you used to cook the pork in the steamer pot.





It's takes around 20 minutes to cook an entire batch.

So simple, so yum, and so filling!



Have it with the chutney and soup.

Bon Appétit, my friends. Hope you were able to find this blog post helpful. And many thanx to Chef Blackestred for the food and instruction.

Cheers.