Delicious foods and buffalo

Nepali curries and green peppers

I love spicy food and often eat Indian and Thai food. I have them twice a week at least.

I looked forward to tasting real Nepali curries!

But…Nepali curries pretty spicy and hot to me. First time I tasted a local curry, tears came out from my eyes. San was eating it sometimes tasting green peppers….

San told me that Nepali curries are not hotter than Indian and Sri Lankan ones.

Anyway I enjoyed fully many curries because my San's sister, Pun kindly changed her recipes and cooked curries which were less spicy than regular ones.  And always I visit there, she cook many dishes for me.

She is a great chef and doesn't have any dishes that she is not able to cook !

Nepal is suffering from outage so often and people don't have microwaves in their house. I have never seen any processed meals like in the US.  Meals are hand cooked. That is why every meals are so delicious and feel healthy.

Nepali MOMOs are stuffed with Baffalo

This is "momo" which is a traditional dumpling. Originally this is from Tibet.

Pun cooked them for me!

"momos" are filled with vegetables or buffalo meat. Nepali people basically don't eat beef,  instead they eat buffalo a meat.  Nepali people consider cows holly animals because they produce milk. 

Slaughtering of cows and bulls is completely banned.I remember…. There are wild cows walking on the streets….　

I asked San whether he had never had beef in his life. His answer is … indeed he has never eaten beef;Actually buffalo's Japanese name is "water-cow" . Yes, they are one kind of cattles to me.

わたしはスパイスを使ったお料理が大好きで、頻繁にインド料理やタイ料理を食べます。1週間に2回は少なくとも食べるかな。なので、ネパール本番のカレーを食べることを楽しみにしてました！

でも、、。ネパールのカレーはわたしにはスパイシーで辛すぎました。初めてカレーを口にしたとき、辛すぎて涙がでてきた。そのよこでサンは青唐辛子をかじりながらカレー食べてたけど。。。

サンによると、ネパールのカレーはインドやスリランカのものに比べれば、辛くないそうです。

ともあれ、サンお姉さんのプンがレシピを変え、スパイスを減らして作ってくれたので、カレーを存分に楽しみました！プンのお料理の腕はすごくて、なんでも作っちゃうんです！

ご存知のようにネパールは貧しい国。電子レンジなんて誰も持っていません。結果、食事用の加工食品は見かけず。その結果、お食事は基本的にオーガニックになるわけで、だから何食べても美味しくて、健康的な感じがします！

これはネパールの餃子、Momo。もともとはチベットから伝播したとか。プンの手作り。

momoの中身は、バッファローのお肉。水牛です。ネパールの人は、基本的に牛肉を食べません。ネパールでは牛は牛乳を生み出すことから、崇められているんです。殺すことは禁止されています。そういえば道を野良牛が歩いてたの見たな・・。

サンに聞いた、では今まで一度も牛を食べたことがないのかと。答えは・・ないらしい！

日本語ではバッファローって水牛。つまり彼らも、わたしにとっては牛ですが。