recipes and remedies
by Rachael
Orkhon, Mongolia
Food here is about nourishing the body, giving nutrients to stop you from being blown over in a gale….there’s lots of meat and fat, lots of rice and potatoes and flour in the form of bread or pasta or dumplings, and bucketloads of fresh milk and yoghurt.
Just take a look at a sampling from our week’s menu:
Breakfast
- toast and sausage, fried egg and cucumber
- rice porridge, steaming hot (OUR FAVOURITE)
- toast with Mongolian “jam”
(a mixture of sour milk, flour, oil and raisins fried together) crumbly, not jammy
Lunch
- Hearty meat and vegetable soup – with dumplings or noodles or steamed
dumpling-ish rolls - “Artz” – sour milk rice soup thickened with flour and seasoned with raisins
- “Glass noodles”. Mongolia’s version of Asia’s fried noodles. This version is thicker and has chunks of chewy meat and potatoes for bulk, as well as the carrots, onions and peppers.
Dinner
- Meat dumplings with fresh crunchy salad, yoghurt for dessert
- “Horsehoes” (a bit like a mini cornish pastie) and coleslaw
Hot garlic milk before bed - Pasta with meat, tomato and vegetable sauce
- Homemade tortilla cut into strips to resemble noodles, then fried with cabbage
And the one dish everyone ate, but no-one particularly enjoyed….here’s the recipe so you can try it at home <wink>
Fry lamb’s tail in oil
Add flour and rice, mix in well
Add black tea and boil until the rice is cooked
Add copious quantities of freshly-acquired cow-juice (aka milk) and heat through
ENJOY!
And when something goes wrong healthwise, their first thought is not to reach for the medicine cabinet, but to tailor the diet….if you’ve got a cold you need to drink chopped up onions boiled in beer, a dry cough calls for honey in milk, and if you want to sleep well, boil some garlic in your evening milk (truly it worked AND cleared the sinuses too). If you’re vomitting or have the trots, make sure you tie a sash tightly around your middle (judging by Mongolian dress this must be a common problem).
Tags: food, health, postcard: Mongolia
rayres
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