Nourishing Traditional Mongolian Airtight Cooking, Part 1 of 2 – Vegan Covered Vegetable Soup

“Today we will be making a dough-covered soup. Generally, Mongolian people have this soup when they feel exhausted, unwell or when they have a cold.” “We’re frying the tofu for the soup. If you like, you can just put it directly into the soup without frying it. Well, our tofu is done. Now let’s prepare our soup. First, we will add some sesame oil to the pan. Sesame oil warms our body and it helps expel excess gas from the body. Also, it will add a wonderful flavor to our soup. Now let’s add some ginger. Ginger is warm in nature, which also helps expel excess gas from the body. Here are some bay leaves. Bay leaves also add a nice flavor to the soup. I am adding black pepper. Adding black pepper enhances the taste and quality of the food.”

“While our soup is boiling on low heat, let’s roll the dough. Before putting it on a board, let’s sprinkle some flour to prevent the dough from sticking. Now we will divide the dough into three portions.” “First, we will cover and seal the soup bowl with the widest dough which we last rolled. Please stretch the dough firmly and cover it over the whole rim of the bowl, like this. Press the dough firmly so that it sticks tightly on the side of the bowl, thereby ensuring there is no gap in between for air to enter or escape. We will then place the other two rolled doughs on top of the dough-covered soup bowl. We’ve now covered the soup bowl with all the rolled dough. Next, we will place it in a steamer and steam it for 10-15 minutes.”

“In order to eat this, we just cut the dough with our spoon like this. Here, the steam rises from the soup. This soup smells so good and the taste is awesome. Since this soup has healing properties, we should smell it first so as to ‘eat’ it with our nose before eating it with our mouth. OK, let me taste the soup. It is so delicious. I can feel the Mongolian taste. As for this dough that covers the soup bowl, we can eat it together with our soup. The same goes for the other two pieces of dough that we’ve separated.”