Phing and Go-nga

Breakfast is a weekend event for my family. Our weekday morning schedules are much too busy for anything more than a piece of toast or some cereal. But weekends are made for breakfast, and my husband is our breakfast maestro. He likes to go all out every weekend with bacon, sausage, eggs, baked beans, toast … all the good stuff. Sometimes my son chips in and together, they’ll make American style waffles, pancakes, French toast etc etc. But once in a while, it’ll be my turn and this is what I usually make … Phing and Go-nga.

During my childhood, special weekend breakfast at my grandmother’s consists of phing, go-nga and bhaley. I don’t know for sure if it is a Siling tradition or something she just came up with but somehow, the combination of these three items works so well for breakfast. I got to make some just the other day – and luckily, I also had the time to take some photographs, which enables me to share it with you today – so please enjoy.

I also made some kokun bhaley … but I feel phing tastes quite delicious with a slice of regular plain crispy toast too.

Anyways, do test this out and let me know what you think !

PS – I always have my phing with some additional hot sauce and Siling Tsu.

(Siling Tsu is a must have item in the Amdowa pantry … Chinese groceries carry it by the brand name ‘Chinkiang Vinegar’ – it’s a dark rice wine vinegar with a complex and somewhat pungent flavor. I use generous amounts of it in lots of things … from salad dressing, thenthuk, thukpa, momo sauce, … to a dash of tsu just before plating the stir fried bakchoy … pick it up if you happen to see it and experiment with it.)

RECIPE

Ingredients:

(Phing)

1 lb Glass Noodles *

Shredded beef

½ small onion – thinly sliced

2-3 garlic – minced

½ inch Ginger – thinly sliced

3 stalks spring onion – cut into 1 inch length

2-3 Whole dry red chilly

Soya Sauce, Salt, Black Pepper, Emma

* Phing or glass noodles, also known as beanthread are transparent noodles made of starch and water. I find the ones made from both mung bean or potato starch to be firm and good for Tibetan cooking.

(Go-nga)

6 eggs

½ onion – diced

3 stalks spring onion – chopped

1 small tomato – chopped

Salt, Pepper to taste

Phing:

Cover the phing (dry glass noodles) with hot water – leave for at least 30 minutes until it softens. Use a knife or scissors to cut the noodles to maneagable length.
Heat the pan and add a dash of oil
Add the whole red chilly and sliced ginger, let sizzle a little while, then add onion, let it brown slightly and then add garlic.
Add shredded beef and dash of emma, stir fry until beef turns color. Add some salt, pepper and soya sauce to taste.
Drain the phing (glass noodles) and add it to the meat. Season with salt and soya sauce, stir and let the noodles cook until they appear transparent. You can add a little water if you feel the noodle sticking to the pan.

Go-nga:

Put all the ingredients in a medium size bowl.
Mix well
Heat the pan, add a dash of oil and coat the surface well.
Pour the egg mixture into the pan and let cook one side.
Turn it over with a spatula and cook the other side. Then break it up into manageable bite size pieces.
Viola, serve the phing and go-nga with regular toast or Tibetan bread.

5 comments on “Phing and Go-nga”

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norrbu
February 1, 2013

Wow – this is great and timely for me.
TMC
January 23, 2013

Looks absolutely delicious! And I have all the ingredients in my pantry!
simplytibetan
January 22, 2013

Ganzey la,

That is so true. How could I forget mentioning Kalimpong phing. Thank you for the reminder. In fact, I remember visiting one family phing factory in the main bazaar in Kalimpong when i was quite young – if my memory serves, I remember that it was owned by two brothers ? Does that ring a bell ? All I remember is some steps to climb up to the main door and then it was all the white powder everywhere inside. i might have been about 8 yrs old then. 🙂

But unfortunately, Kalimpong phing seems to have deteriorated in quality since those days. I think part of the problem is that the younger generation is always trying to look for shortcuts, and this really effects output. I think we have to make special effort to instill values of hardwork, patience and the will to strive for excellence in our young ones – these are qualities instilled deeply in our elders – and without this we lose quality in everything.
Ganzey Tshering
January 22, 2013

From one Silingpa to another, my Pala used Pork instead of beef, kyurtse(chives) if it was in season or celery, with black mushrooms, with the Phing(& naturally growing up in Kalimpong, our Amdowas including my Pala, made the best Phing, mung-bean vermicelli). I think Kalimpong still supplies almost all of the needed Phing in the Indian sub-continent, but with the opening up of India these days, am sure imports from other Asian countries are flooding in???

& talking about Siling Tsu, we used the ones made by the Chinese living in Tangra, Kolkata. But, later we sometimes used to get small black bricks of this condensed version of Tsu from Tibet/China, and just cutting up a small piece and mixing it with water, would give you this wonderful, aromatic concoction, that I find it hard to get in the market.