Chicken stew from the world’s rooftop
A large proportion of Nepalese people get their daily food from their own backyards. Vegetable gardens, which are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, are the lifeblood of families in remote areas of Nepal.
Text: Elisa Rimaila
Photos: Antti Yrjönen
A BROWN CHICKEN that until recently pecked around the yard has lost its head. Its fate? To end up as part of the lunch Sabitri Gurung Ale, 28, and Dhansara Ale, 31, are preparing today. Before its demise, the bird was free to roost and dig in the yard with its fellow birds, living a life of which most of the world’s domestic animals can only dream.
Dhansara’s chicken stew
MAKES ABOUT 6 SERVINGS
You will need: a sharp knife for carving the chicken, a large wok or frying pan with high sides. Serve with jasmine rice.
- 1 chicken or 600–700 grams of chicken meat
- 2 onions
- 1 garlic clove
- A good piece of ginger
- 500 g cherry tomatoes or tomatoes, chopped
- 1 chili pepper (spiciness to taste)
- A dash of oil for frying
- 300–500 ml water
- A pinch of salt
- 2–4 tablespoons ground turmeric
1. Cut the chicken into small pieces.
2. Chop the onions, garlic and ginger and sauté them in oil in a pan.
3. Add the turmeric and stir. Add the chicken and fry until cooked.
4. Add the chili, chopped cherry tomatoes and water. Cook until you have a soft stew.
IN TARANGA VILLAGE in Surkhet district of western Nepal, chicken is rarely eaten. Birds and goats are slaughtered for food, mainly for celebrations and guests. Meat may also be needed when the fields and vegetable gardens produce a poorer harvest than usual.
Sabitri and Dhansara belong to the same family, as their husbands are brothers. The women’s home is 34 kilometers from the nearest big city, Birendranagar. The journey takes an hour and a half on the dusty, hilly and partly unfinished road, even in a four-wheel drive. Shops and health services are far away, and Sabitri and Dhansara’s families don’t have enough money to spend there in any case.
In the village of Taranga, self-sufficiency is a lifeline for families.
Vegetable curry from one’s own vegetable garden
The ashes are still smoking as Sabitri gathers them into a bowl with her bare hands in the shade of her rustic kitchen.
Soon a new fire is burning in the campfire, and she pours cooking oil into the pan. The ingredients for the vegetable curry are waiting to be added to the pot: plump cabbage, onions, garlic, and potatoes as small as the bottom of the pot. Everything has been picked directly from the family’s own field.
Sabitri’s vegetable curry
MAKES ABOUT 6 SERVINGS
You will need: a large wok or saucepan for the curry, a saucepan for heating the milk, a stone base and a grinding stone (a mortar and pestle will do).
- 1 white cabbage
- About 1 kg potatoes
- 2 onions
- A dash of cooking oil for sautéing the vegetables
- 1 chili pepper (spiciness to your taste)
- 1 whole garlic clove
- 400 ml milk
- 700 ml water (you can add more water if the curry consistency seems too dry)
- A pinch of salt
- 2–4 tbsp ground turmeric
1. Start by heating the milk in a saucepan.
2. Chop the cabbage, cut the potatoes into pieces and slice the onion. Cut the chili into pieces and the garlic cloves into smaller pieces and grind them into a smooth paste, to which you can add a couple of tablespoons of cold water if necessary.
3. Sauté the onion in cooking oil for a while in a wok.
4. Add the turmeric and the chili garlic paste you prepared. Stir.
5. Sauté the potatoes over low heat first, stirring, and add the cabbage when the potatoes start to cook.
6. Add the milk to the mixture and gradually add the water. Simmer gently over low heat. Stir and let it simmer under the lid.
Minty spice paste
ABOUT 30 GRAMS OF PREPARED PASTE
You will need: a stone base and a grinding stone (a mortar will also work).
- 300 g fresh cherry tomatoes or chopped tomatoes
- A good bunch of fresh mint
- 1 chili pepper (spiciness to taste, but preferably hotter than mild)
- A good pinch of salt
- About 1 cl water
1. Chop the tomatoes, mint and chili pepper into small pieces.
2. Grind the chopped tomatoes, mint and chili pepper into a smooth paste. Add cold water in small amounts if necessary until the consistency is correct.
3. Finally, add salt to taste. You can also add mint, chili pepper and tomato if you like.
TOMATO STEMS snake along their support canes. Their leaves are pale yellow, and the soil in the potato field cracks with thirst. This year there hasn’t been enough to sell the crop, which means the family has been living on a shoestring.
“Everything depends on water. Now there is none,” says Sabitri.
Climate change is affecting Nepal. As a result, rainfall is more erratic than before. In addition to drought, Nepal has experienced heavier than usual rainfall this year, resulting in devastating floods.
The family carries irrigation water from a river about two hundred meters away, even though there is a water pump in the yard.
The pump was installed as part of a larger regional irrigation project. It was intended to improve water access in remote villages like Taranga by pumping water from the Bheri River using electricity generated by solar power. Taranga has been waiting five years for solar power to be installed.
Drinking water carried from the river
The scent of the clear, rushing Bheri River brings to mind a Finnish lake landscape. The family’s children rush to swim. Today, only a few tiddlers are caught in the nets, which the children release back into the river.
Children pour water into a larger plastic barrel in their backyard. The water is used for cooking and drinking.
“Drinking water has to be fetched every four days,” Sabitri says, pouring a drop of water into the spice mixture that she grinds between stones from fresh mint, chili, and small tomatoes.
Climate change is separating families
Drought doesn’t just affect food production and livelihoods. It tears families apart.
“When it doesn’t rain and there are no crops, people go elsewhere to work. Because of the drought, we can’t live together as a family,” says Sabitri.
Her husband works in Malaysia, her father-in-law in India.
“We used to live happily together. I haven’t seen my husband for almost a year and I miss him,” Sabitri says.
Sabitri and Dhansara’s families have lived in the region for decades. In recent years, the families have been learning about new farming methods that help them adapt to climate change in a project funded by the Finnish and German Foreign Ministries and the European Union. The project is implemented by FCA together with the German development agency GiZ.
“We now have the knowledge and skills we need. But that’s of no use if we lack water,” says Sabitri.
Outside the courtyard cattle nestle under trees, resting in the midday heat. For Hindus and Buddhists, cattle are sacred animals that are not slaughtered for food. Their milk is still good for sweet, spicy tea. Sabitri also pours thick, fatty milk into the cauldron of onions, cabbage, and cooked potatoes. The cauldron smells of turmeric, chili, and garlic. Lunch is soon ready.
