Aloo Tama

Name: Aloo Tama
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Nepali
Ingredients: 250 g Fermented bamboo shoot (tama); 200 g Black-eyed beans, soaked overnight; 500 g Potatoes, cut into chunks; 1 Onion, chopped; 2 Tomato, chopped; 5 cloves Garlic, crushed; 3 cm Ginger, grated; 1.5 tsp Turmeric; 1 tsp Ground cumin; 1/2 tsp Timur (Sichuan pepper), ground; 2 Dried red chillies; 3 tbsp Mustard oil; 2 tsp Salt; 1.2 L Water; 15 g Fresh coriander to finish

Potato, black-eyed beans and sour fermented bamboo shoot in a thin yellow broth — the most distinctly Nepali soup there is, and the one that divides visitors fastest.

Nguồn

Công thức của Nepali home kitchens · 🏺 Truyền thống · Everyday Nepali cooking — rice and lentils twice a day, a seasonal vegetable beside them, and a fermented something sharp enough to cut through both.

Nepali · fermented bamboo soup — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article confirms the three defining ingredients — fermented bamboo shoot, potato and black-eyed beans — and the soup form. Quantities, the fry-the-tama-first method and the timings are this book's own.

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Các bước

Boil the soaked black-eyed beans in 800 ml of the water for 25 minutes until tender but still whole. Keep the water.
Heat the mustard oil until it smokes, cool it a moment, then fry the dried chillies, garlic, ginger and onion until golden.
Add the turmeric, cumin and timur, then the tomato, and cook until the tomato collapses into the oil.
Add the bamboo shoot and fry it 5 minutes. The smell changes from sharp to round — that is the point to move on.
💡 Frying the tama before any liquid goes in is what tames it. Boil it straight from the jar and the soup will be brutally sour.
Tip in the beans with their water, the potato, the salt and the rest of the water. Simmer 25 minutes until the potato starts to break at the edges and thicken the broth.
Scatter the coriander and serve with rice. It should be thin enough to spoon over a plate of it.

💡 Mẹo

Aloo tama is Newar in origin and now cooked in every Nepali kitchen. The sourness comes from the bamboo alone — no vinegar, no tamarind.
If you can only find plain canned bamboo shoot, this will not be aloo tama — it needs the fermented kind. That is the one ingredient with no substitute.
It thickens overnight and is better for it. Loosen with a splash of water when you reheat.