[Sca-cooks] Mongolian food

[Elaine Koogler]

Finger foods may a bit difficult, but there are a couple of recipes that I used for an event last fall that went over well.  The first one is a Chinese recipe from a 14th century manuscript:

43. Water Dragonlets

Chop finely two portions of lean pork meat to each one portion of fatty meat.  Add a little spring onion, Chinese pepper, apricot kernel paste and dry steamed cake powder (i.e., similar to breadcrumbs), and mix.  Moisten hands with vinegar and roll the dough into balls.  Cover the outside with real starch flour.  Boil in soup.  Take them out when they float to the surface.  They can be served with clear or piquant stock.

1# Ground Pork
1/8 cup Spring onion, finely chopped
¼  tsp. Szechuan pepper
2 Tbsp. Apricot kernel paste (use almond paste)
1 Tbsp.Breadcrumbs
Starch flour
1 qt. Chicken stock

1. Mix meat, spring onion, ground pepper, almond paste and bread crumbs (again, I suggest using the food processor
very hard to get paste blended in!)
2. Make into 1” meatballs
3. Roll meatballs in flour
4. Bring stock to a boil and drop meatballs into broth
5. Cook for 3 – 5 minutes or until done (they will float a little before they’re completely cooked.)

This next is a Mongol recipe from "A Soup for the Qan", specifically from a 14th century household encyclopedia, "Chu-chia pi-yung shih lei", and is one of the Muslim recipes:

2. Rolled Thin Pancakes

Spread out thin wafers.  Set out walnuts, pine nuts, peach kernels, hazel nuts, tender lotus seeds [Nelumbium speciiosum], dried persimmons, lotus rhizome, gingko fruits, prepared chestnuts, badam [Per:  almonds].  Except for the yellow of the chestnuts, to be cut into strips, cut everything up finely.  Combine with crystallized honey.  Add pulverized lamb, ground ginger, salt, onions, and combine.  Make the filing.  Put into thin
wafers.  Fry in oil.

Lumpia  wrappers
2 tsp. Ground Walnuts
2 tsp. Ground Pine nuts
2 tsp. Peach kernels (used slivered almonds, ground )
2 tsp. Ground Hazelnuts
--Lotus seeds (omit—couldn’t find)
4 tsp. Dried persimmons, finely chopped
2 tsp. Lotus rhizome, finely chopped
4 tsp. Gingko fruit, finely chopped
2 tsp. Prepared chestnuts, cut into strips
1 tbsp. Crystallized honey
1# Ground lamb
1 tsp.Ground ginger
1 tsp.Salt
½ small Onion
Oil

1. Mix walnuts, pine nuts, almonds, hazel nuts, persimmon, lotus, gingko and chestnuts with honey.
2. Add lamb, ginger, salt and onion (chopped finely)
3. Roll into Lumpia wrappers
4. Spread a thin coat of oil on pans for oven and lay rolls in oil
5. Oven fry
not sure for how long, so keep an eye on them
don’t let them get too dark.

Finally, we have the precursor to modern baklava, from the same source (this one could be a little messy for finger food, but you might be able to figure something out...it's absolutely delicious!):

Gullach

Mix evenly egg white, bean paste and cream [to make a dough].  Spread out [dough] and fry into thin pancakes.  Use one layer of white powdered sugar, [ground] pine nuts and [ground] walnuts for each layer of pancake.  Make three-four layers like this.  Pour honey dissolved in ghee [“Muslim oil”] over the top.  Eat.

2 Egg whites
½ cup soy flour
½ cup table cream
1/16 cup water
3 tbsp. Powdered sugar
½ cup Pine nuts, ground
½ cup Walnuts, ground
½ cup Honey
3 tbsp. Ghee

1. Mix egg whites, flour and cream to make a dough
2. Fry into thin pancakes
3. Mix sugar and nuts together.
4. Heat ghee and mix in honey
5. Build 3 layers, alternating pancakes and sugar/nut mixture, finishing with sugar/nut mixture.
6. Drizzle ghee/honey mixture over pancakes.
7. Serve as warm as possible.

I hope these help a bit.  So far as beverages are concerned, if you don't want to get into making kumiss, you might try something like a pomegranite or lemon syrup drink...or even sekanjabin.  Muslim recipes were widely used by the Mongols, as evidenced by the two above!

Kiri



Katy Ice wrote:

> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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> [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
> Hi all,
>
> A member of my household is going to be knighted at July Coronation (An Tir) in a few weeks. I am helping plan things for his vigil party, which will be a huge party with alot of people and a lot of food and drink. It is going to be informal, with finger type foods offered, alcohol and other beverages, etc. Qorin (the man on vigil) has a Mongolian persona, and we were hoping to have some Mongolian type foods available at the party.
>
> Most of the Mongolian food and drinks I have researched sound disgusting (sorry if I offend anyone out there). Does anyone have any ideas for some "decent" Mongolian type food/drink, or at least something that is similar to Mongolian food that can be substituted? Refrigeration is not a problem, as his Knight lives 10 minutes from the site and we can use his house for whatever we may need.
>
> So, can anyone give me some ideas/help?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Reginleif
> An Tir
>
> --
>
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