Before You Start
By the time momos reached Delhi's street corners they had already travelled a long way, first with Tibetan families who settled in Darjeeling, Sikkim and the hill states of the Northeast, and then outward into cities where nobody remembered a time before the momo cart. Three qualities decide whether a batch succeeds. The wrapper must stay thin without tearing or going gummy under steam, the filling has to be minced finely enough to cook fast while giving up little water, and the closing pleats must hold tight, since each dumpling cooks in its own small pocket of trapped steam. You need nothing beyond a steamer, though the pleating comes more easily after a few attempts.
Where It Comes From
The momo is a Tibetan dumpling, and its Indian story begins with the exile community and the hill stations of Darjeeling and Sikkim, where Tibetan families have lived for decades. Neighbouring Northeast states such as Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Meghalaya keep steamed dumplings of their own, with related names and different stuffings, so the region has long had its own habit of eating them. The big change came more recently, when momos moved into ordinary Indian street food, above all in Delhi and other northern cities. There cooks sharpened the chutney with extra chilli and sometimes fried or seared the dumplings, neither of which belongs to the Tibetan original. It seems fairer to say this directly than to file the momo under generic Indian snacks, because the dish is Himalayan at heart, and what the rest of India eats is a later layer over a living tradition in the hills.
How to Make It
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Prep
Knead and rest the dough
Combine flour and salt in a bowl, then trickle in water and pull the mixture into a soft, smooth dough, softer than roti dough yet not tacky. Knead it for four to five minutes until it feels springy, coat it with a thin film of oil, cover with a damp cloth, and give it at least twenty minutes. Without that wait the dough keeps springing back when you try to roll it thin.
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Prep
Prepare the filling
Toss the chopped cabbage with a little salt, wait ten minutes, and then wring it out in your hands over the sink to remove as much water as possible. If you skip this, the filling turns watery and leaks through the dough in the steamer. Mix the dry cabbage with carrot, spring onion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper and salt. Raw cabbage tastes milder than cooked, so if you are unsure about the seasoning, fry a spoonful and taste it.
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Prep
Roll the wrappers
Cut the rested dough into 20 small balls. Roll each one into a thin circle about 2.5 to 3 inches across, leaving the centre a touch thicker than the rim. That uneven thickness lets the base carry the weight of the filling without tearing, while the thin edge pleats easily.
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Assemble
Fill and pleat
Spoon about a heaped teaspoon of filling onto the middle of a wrapper. Draw the rim up and over the filling, folding it into small pleats as you turn the dumpling, then squeeze the pleats together at the top and twist lightly to seal. At first the pleating may feel awkward; a plain half-moon, pressed shut and crimped as for a pierogi, holds the filling equally well and steams the same.
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Cook
Steam the dumplings
Rub a little oil on the steamer tray or cover it with parchment that has a few holes poked in it, and place the momos on top with space between them, since they swell and will otherwise fuse. Cover and steam over vigorously boiling water for ten to twelve minutes. They are ready when the wrapper has gone glossy and slightly see-through instead of matte and floury.
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Prep
Cook the chutney
Combine tomatoes, soaked chillies and garlic with a small amount of water in a pot and simmer for eight to ten minutes, until the tomato pieces have melted down. Pulse to a rough purée. Warm the oil in a clean small pan, pour the purée back in, and cook for three to four minutes more, so it thickens a little. Add salt, then allow it to cool.
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Serve
Bring to the table hot
Serve the momos straight away while they are hot and shiny, with the chutney for dipping. As they cool, the wrapper firms up and toughens noticeably, so they are best eaten within a few minutes of leaving the steamer, which is how a street cart serves them.
Swaps That Work
Ready-made dumpling or wonton skins save time, although they are thinner and tear more easily, so fill them lightly and handle them with care. Chopped mushrooms or crumbled paneer will add heft to the vegetable filling, either mixed in or used for part of it. Lacking sesame oil, use a few drops of any plain oil together with a pinch of crushed toasted sesame seeds. Tamari can take the place of soy sauce if you need the filling gluten-free, but remember that the wrapper is still made from wheat flour.
Turning the Heat Up or Down
Because the dumplings themselves are seasoned only with a little black pepper, the chutney is the real source of heat, and you can tailor it for each person rather than for the whole batch. Using fewer dried chillies and trusting the tomato's sweetness yields a mild sauce. A hotter one comes from extra soaked chillies or a spoonful of vinegar-based red chilli sauce, which many momo stalls add for sharpness and keeping quality. Darjeeling-style stalls often finish the chutney with a few drops of sesame oil.
Where Cooks Go Wrong
Most failures start with the cabbage. Skip the salting and squeezing and the filling releases water that soaks the dough from inside, which leaves the base of each momo sodden. Next comes wrappers rolled too thick; they cook into something bready and heavy, whereas a good momo skin is thin and a little chewy, thin enough at the rim that your fingers show through. Then there is overcrowding the steamer: momos that touch will stick together or to the tray and rip when you pull them apart, so keep a visible gap. Finally, undercooked dumplings have raw, pasty dough along the seams. Cut open one from the middle of the tray before you decide the batch is finished.
Keeping and Warming Up Leftovers
To keep: Raw filled momos are good freezer candidates. Place them on a tray so they do not touch, freeze until hard, then bag or box them for as long as a month, and cook them without thawing, adding three to four minutes to the steaming time. Already-steamed momos can wait in a closed container in the fridge for two days, but the wrapper never matches the texture it had straight from the steamer. Chutney is a separate matter and lasts four days in the refrigerator.
To warm up: The best way to warm cooked momos is to steam them once more, three to four minutes, which restores the wrapper in a way a microwave cannot; microwaving tends to make the dough tough and rubbery. If no steamer is within reach, cover them with a damp paper towel and microwave in short bursts, though steaming is clearly better when you can spare the time. In every case they should be piping hot at the centre.
Safe Handling
These dumplings contain only vegetables, which are cooked completely in the steamer, so the real food-safety question is how the cooked filling and the finished dumplings are handled, with no raw meat involved. Should you cook the cabbage mixture, or any of the vegetables, before filling, let it cool to room temperature within an hour and then chill it, particularly in warm weather, because cooked vegetables left out for long can still grow bacteria. Put leftover steamed momos in the fridge within two hours, and do not leave a cooked batch on a buffet table longer than that. If meat dishes are being prepared in the same kitchen that day, keep the raw dough and the filling clear of those work surfaces.