Yomari: Nepal's Steamed Rice-Flour Sweet with Chaku Filling

Winter steam from yomari wrapped around a dark filling

Lift the lid of the steamer and thin threads of steam rise from the white rice-flour parcels. The long-tailed shape looks like a fish, or like a nut, but what catches your eye the moment you break one open is the deep brown inside. A filling of chaku, similar to brown sugar, flows slowly, and the toasty aroma of roasted sesame carries into the hot dough.

Yomari (योमरी) is a steamed rice-flour sweet of Nepal's Newar people. Rice-flour dough is wrapped around chaku (a solid, molasses-like sugar) or khuwa (a filling of reduced milk), given a fish-like tail and steamed. Though it resembles a dumpling, it isn't a dish that wraps a savory filling. The softness of the dough, the aroma of the filling and the texture swelled by steam come together as one sweet.

According to the Nepal Tourism Board, yomari is tied to Yomari Punhi, a day of prayer to Annapurna, the goddess of rice harvest and food. When you make it elsewhere, keeping the distance of a sweet that a family steams together in the season of new rice, rather than treating it as a merely sweet dumpling, makes it easier to decide how to substitute ingredients.

This quantity makes 12 pieces. The three key points are to bring the dough together with hot water, not to over-reduce the chaku filling, and not to let cracks form at the base of the tail. If you can't get chaku, you can make it with brown sugar, but the filling runs out if you dissolve the sugar in too much water, so the ratio for the substitute is also specified within the method.

Yomari Punhi and the table of the Kathmandu Valley

Yomari Punhi is presented as a Newar festival on the full moon of the Nepali month of Thinla. Because conversions from the Nepali calendar change every year, it is more accurate to think of it as an occasion on the day of the full moon, when people celebrate the rice harvest and share yomari at home, than to memorize a fixed date. The Nepal Tourism Board explains it as a day when people of the Kathmandu Valley honor Annapurna, goddess of grain and food, and pray for the rice harvest.

Local articles preserve several tellings of yomari's origin: the story that a couple in Panauti first made it with new rice and molasses, and the story that a sweet shared with a stranger spread into the festival. These are origin tales tied to the tables of Panauti and the Newar rather than one settled history of invention. As for the name, the Nepal Tourism Board gives a meaning that corresponds to "delicious bread" in the Newar language.

Accounts also describe winter households where, beyond the steam rising from the steamer, yomari is shared beside a heating device like a brazier. Because it is a sweet in which family members take turns shaping and eat the ones that finish steaming while hot, the handmade look of the table remains even if the shapes are not all the same. There are also records of the Newar custom of making yomari for a child's even-numbered birthday, so it is not a sweet confined to the festival day.

Regional and household differences show up in the filling and the shape. A rich filling of chaku combined with sesame and coconut is known as the basic form, and using khuwa gives a white, milky filling. A regional guide to Bhaktapur also introduces a distinction in which the chaku-and-sesame filling is called bayo yomari and a black lentil filling is called mayo yomari, but this doesn't mean that names and fillings are uniform across all of Nepal. Alongside explanations of a fish-like tail, it is also described as resembling a fig, and shaping varies slightly by festival and household.

What to preserve in a home kitchen is not gathering all the imported ingredients. It is handling the rice flour with hot water, not burning the filling black, and cooking the white skin in steam to just before it turns translucent. Chaku can be replaced with brown sugar, but if you make the dough from wheat flour it becomes a different sweet. If you keep the shaping before arranging it in the steamer and a filling that hasn't set too hard when you break it open, you can reach a yomari-like result in a home kitchen anywhere.

Ingredients (serves 6, makes 12)

The quantity is based on 2 pieces per person. The dough is mostly joshinko (non-glutinous rice flour) with only 30 g of glutinous rice flour added. This isn't to reproduce the Nepali formula exactly; it is a home adjustment to make the base of the tail less likely to crack the first time you shape them. You don't want a mochi-like stickiness, so don't increase the glutinous rice flour.

Shiratamako absorbs water at a different speed, so don't add all the hot water at once. Because you use only 30 g, think about whether you can use the rest for shiratama dumplings or fruit daifuku. If you make yomari only once, joshinko alone is fine.

Chaku is a solid sugar used in Nepali sweets and drinks, and replacing it with brown sugar makes the flavor lighter. Even if a candidate can be found by mail order, one whose ingredients and quantity can't be confirmed shouldn't be central to your shopping. If it's just for yomari, it is less likely to fail if you make it with 140 g brown sugar and 20 ml water and shorten the time you cook the filling down.

Cardamom is only 3 pods, so buying whole pods makes sense for people who will use it in chai or baking too. Pods hold their aroma better than powder. For a single batch of yomari, leaving it out rather than adding the cinnamon you have keeps the core of the flavor intact.

Changing to a khuwa filling

If you prefer the round sweetness of milk over the deep aroma of chaku, prepare a khuwa filling for 12 pieces. Put 120 g khuwa, 35 g raw cane sugar, 15 g dried coconut and 0.3 g cardamom in a small pot over low heat and cook, pressing with a wooden spatula, for 4–5 minutes until it holds together. It firms up as it cools, so once it is cool enough to handle, divide it into 12 and press with your fingers to remove the corners. Khuwa is dairy, so even if you make the dough without ghee, you can't avoid dairy.

Method: shape the hot dough into a fish tail

Before making the dough, put 3–4 cm of water in the steamer, cover and heat over high heat. If you arrange the yomari while the steam is still weak, the skin absorbs too much moisture and turns heavy. Line the steaming tray with 12 pieces of parchment or brush it thinly with oil.

Sesame-chaku or khuwa: how the filling changes yomari's outline

The impression yomari makes depends less on whether the shapes of the skins are uniform than on what the filling is responsible for. The rich chaku filling of the festival day leads with the toasty flavor of molasses and sesame, while the khuwa filling lets the round sweetness of milk meet the sweetness of the rice flour.

Chaku and sesame filling

This is the form that combines sesame with a dark filling. With chaku you get the depth of molasses, but with a brown sugar substitute, if you finish it without letting it boil, it flows pleasantly inside the dough. White sesame has a gentle aroma, while black sesame brings more color and bitterness, so 45 g of white sesame is easier to handle the first time.

Khuwa filling

Khuwa is a nearly solid dairy product made by reducing milk, whiter than the chaku filling and smoother in the mouth. When using khuwa, don't wrap the filling while hot; roll it once the heat has eased. A hot filling loosens the dough, and the bottom opens before steaming.

How fillings are distinguished in Bhaktapur

A regional guide to Bhaktapur introduces the chaku-and-sesame filling and the black lentil filling under different names. If you try a black lentil version at home, mash 120 g boiled black lentils until the moisture is gone and bring them together over low heat with 35 g brown sugar, 8 g ghee and 15 g sesame. This is, however, a different preparation from the chaku filling in this article. When you change the filling, adjust not only the sweetness but also the moisture and viscosity.

Notes when changing the shape

Keeping a fish-like tail is closer to the local explanation, but a boat shape with a shortened tail steams fine too. Make it a round dumpling and the filling's weight collects at the bottom, so there is less point in making the wall even. For the first 12, evening out the thickness of the base and the seam matters more to the result than aiming for identical shapes.

What to do when they crack, harden or stay floury

The base of the tail cracks during shaping

The dough may have cooled and dried. Wrap the rest of the dough in a damp cloth, put 1–2 drops of water on the cracked surface and press it back with your fingers. If the line still opens, knead in 5 ml hot water and rest 5 minutes. Adding flour to try to counter the dryness makes it crack even more.

The bottom opens after steaming

Either the bottom wall is thin, there is too much filling, or the steam is weak. For the next batch, leave about 4 mm at the bottom and reduce the filling from 18 g to 15 g. Use the steamer only after the water boils, and after arranging them keep the lid closed for 15 minutes. For yomari that have already split, put the filling on a plate and eat it with the warm skin, so nothing is wasted.

The filling sets like candy

The chaku was boiled, or too much moisture evaporated while it cooled. Return it to a small pot, add 5 ml water and warm it over low heat for just 30 to 60 seconds. Stop when a line drawn with a wooden spatula stays for about 3 seconds. Adding a lot of water at once makes the filling run while steaming and leak from the seam.

The center of the skin is floury

The dough wall is thick or the steam is insufficient. Make the wall 3–4 mm when shaping, and check that the steam is strong before putting them in. If it doesn't improve after 18 minutes of steaming, next time divide into smaller 45 g pieces and open the tip of the tail a little to let air escape before closing it.

What to replace and what to keep in a home kitchen

You don't need to gather a full set of Nepali equipment for yomari. A steamer can be stood in for by a metal steaming tray and a deep pot, or a colander lined with a steaming cloth. However, in a pot where it is hard to keep steady steam, the skin absorbs moisture before the surface sets.

Base the dough on joshinko. Using only shiratamako moves it too close to mochi, and adding potato starch changes the crumbly way yomari's rice flour cuts. Without chaku, make it with 140 g brown sugar, 20 ml water, 45 g sesame and 20 g coconut, and if the sugar's aroma is weak, add just 3 cardamom pods. Wrapping brown sugar as is isn't suited to the first time, because sugar melted by steam tends to collect at the bottom.

For sesame, crushing coarsely leaves grains in the filling better than chopping with a knife. An electric mill tends to make it too fine, and if you will also crush whole spices a little at a time beyond yomari, a granite mortar is worth having. Look for natural granite, with a mortar and pestle set, in a size that suits you. If you will use sesame only once, avoid an extra purchase by using a suribachi or the bottom of a sturdy bowl.

If you already have a suribachi, you don't need to buy more. A mortar suits only people who want to avoid crushing sesame too fine, crush cardamom seeds and carry it into the next Nepali or spice dish. It is large and heavy, so if you don't have storage space, an ordinary suribachi is enough.

Serving that leads into Nepali tea time

Rather than stacking steamed yomari high on a plate, set 2 at a time with the broken filling visible, which makes them easier to eat. Unsweetened black tea suits the richness of the chaku filling, and milk tea suits the khuwa. To keep the outline of a local sweet, don't add whipped cream or ice cream; let tea meet the heat and aroma.

To widen a Nepali table with dishes, make the savory momo first and set yomari beside it as a steamed dessert. Combining the everyday dal bhat with the Newar rice dish pukala (in Japanese) shows not only a sweet festival treat but also differences in a rice-centered food culture.

For storage, let them cool, put them in an airtight container and plan on 2 days refrigerated. Before eating, cover with damp paper towels and reheat in a steamer for 5–7 minutes to bring the skin back. To freeze, wrap fully cooled ones individually and plan on 1 month. Put them in the steamer still frozen, steam 5–8 minutes longer than usual, and confirm they are hot at the center.

FAQ

Without chaku, can it still be yomari?

You can substitute 140 g brown sugar and 20 ml water. The deep molasses aroma of chaku is weaker, but if you don't boil the filling and combine it with 45 g toasted sesame and 20 g coconut, the core of yomari, a rice-flour skin and a dark filling, remains. Honey and maple syrup have a lot of moisture and leak easily while steaming, so I don't choose them as a first-time substitute.

Can I make it with joshinko alone?

Yes. Replace the 30 g glutinous rice flour with 30 g joshinko and start with 220 ml hot water. A dough of joshinko alone tends to crack at the seam, so rest it 10 minutes and leave the wall about 4 mm thick when shaping. Using only shiratamako gives a stickiness closer to mochi than to yomari.

I can't make the fish shape. Is it OK to make them round?

You can steam them round, but the filling collects at the bottom. At first, rather than making a perfect thin tail, prioritize a thick base of the cavity and a wall evened out at 3–4 mm. For the tail, just pinching it at the end with your fingertips is enough.

The steamed yomari got hard. Can I reheat them?

Cover with damp paper towels and warm in a steamer for 5–7 minutes. If the filling has set hard like candy, next time return 5 ml water to the chaku filling and turn off the heat when the trail of a wooden spatula stays for about 3 seconds. Rather than pouring water onto a filling that has set, cooking it less next time is easier to handle inside the skin.

What if I can't eat sesame or dairy?

You can increase the coconut in place of sesame, but the toasty flavor and grainy texture of the filling change. To avoid dairy, replace the ghee with vegetable oil and choose the chaku filling rather than khuwa. Rice flour and sugar also carry production-line labeling, so if you have allergies, check each product.

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