What's All the Hubub, Buuz?

The Saturday before Labor Day, I was at the grocery store with the kids and had no idea what we were cooking for the week, when I realized it was time to do another Dartmap Dinner, and we had totally forgotten about it. We decided it was just too last minute to throw a dart and find food and make a list, because in the past, it was kind of a big process with lots of options to narrow down. So, we skipped it.
We actually totally forgot about it again until mid-Sunday on our way to a pool party, so we hastily threw a dart en-route, and got... Mongolia.

I thought, "Oh crap, I'm going to have to make Chinese food??" Because even though I realize they are separate countries, Mongolian Beef or Mongolian Barbecue were my only concepts of what Mongolian food would be. Wrong concepts, as it turns out.

Sunday night, the guys went to some D&D thing together and I had lots of downtime with my preschooler, so I started scoping out what Mongolian food might actually be, bracing myself for boring Chinese-style meat in sauce over rice with veggies or whatever, because you know, most people need/want/have vegetables in their diet - unless, you are The Mongols.

Rules don't apply

Exceptions to many rules of civilization, Mongolians are nomadic and have very little access to or use for vegetables, and their diets consist of mainly sheep, horse, and flour. One common culinary option is to fill the carcass of an animal with hot stones and then let it cook everything inside the animal, then feast. I don't think our HOA bylaws allow for such things, and frankly, neither does my stomach.

Fortunately, I found an alternative in the way of little dumplings called Buuz. A basic dough is filled with a meat mixture and steamed. The brevity of the shopping list was an appealing prospect, and it sounded easy enough...

Incidentally, did you know that when you mix flour and water you get glue, basically? I am sure if you have been making these your whole life, it is easy, but we have not been making these our whole life. The dough was a gunky, sticky nightmare. Trying to make cute little dumpling packages was also a nightmare. Our dumplings were downright ugly. The filling was lamb and onions and scant spices - simple and the best part of the process and flavor.

The Many Nightmarish Stages of Buuz

Overall, these tasted pretty good. Lamb is a flavor I am not really used to and I thought it little gamey, but everyone seemed to like these little addictive dumplings - served, authentically, with KETCHUP. Yes, that's right, Mongolians eat these little pups with ketchup. We tried them with Soy Sauce too, but surprisingly, the ketchup actually tasted better with them.

That was the entirety of dinner, but we had to round it out somehow and made Boorstag with Suutei-Tsai - Fried Dough Cookies with Salt Milk Tea.
These tasted about how you would imagine: Okay and not as okay.

The cookies, although they involved dough as well, were easier to make than the dumplings, and although the dough was just as sticky, they required less precision with rolling and cutting shapes, and then there was no further assembly, just frying. They were really pretty bland though, so we added some powdered sugar. They looked like beignets and were kind of pretty, but they are far denser and not as tasty as beignets; not even close. Mongolians eat these cookies with honey sometimes, so we tried that and it made them infinitely more palatable.

"Cookies" and "Tea" - if one is desperate

The Salt Milk Tea, however, was not, er, our cup of tea. I have had milk tea with honey before and I quite like it. I was hoping the salt would do something interesting to the flavor, but no, it just tasted like salty milk tea. *one star* It was drinkable, but none of us wanted much of it. Mongolians apparently drink this milk tea several times a day. Maybe it is an acquired taste.

Overall, this is the weirdest Dartmap Dinner we have had. It is possibly the weirdest dinner of any sort we've ever had, but I guess that is why we do this experiment, so we can break out of our usual dinner rut.
I might consider making the dumplings again, using won-ton wrappers instead of making that god-forsaken dough, but The Mongols can have the cookies and tea, along with their stone-cooked horse-meat, forever, without exception.

Fun Fact: Most Mongolians are Buddhist, and 30% of the population is nomadic. "Horse Culture" is integral to their lives. (I am not entirely sure what Horse Culture is, but I assume it is like Gun Culture in Texas... a way of life whether people like it or not... I wonder if we could swap guns for horses here?)



Here are some recipe and just fun links for your perusal: 

All of our recipes came from this site:
http://www.mongolfood.info/en/

Mongols are the exception:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqcVro-3f4I

Here is my Pinterest board where I save sites I research:
https://www.pinterest.com/thenotoriousb/dartmap-dining/