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Taking tea usually without milk and sugar is the custom in the Shan State,as it is through out the Union of Myanmar because everyone,young or elderly,male or female,lay or monk,drinks tea usually in the traditional way but rarely in a modern way mixing it with milk and sugar.
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There is a set of kitchen equipment which the Myanmar housewife can not do without.It is the set of pestle and mortar for the pounding of food.
The pestle and mortar come made of three different materials. The basic set used in heavy work when the ingredient has to be thoroughly pounded is the granite pestle and mortar. The set used when heavy force need not be applied is made of clay. An alternate set is made of wood.
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Myanmar people living with a coastline that is one thousand four hundred miles long. where the sea washes the beaches of five states and divisions and teems with luscious lobsters.delicious red snappers. pomfret of singular pleasure.and squid of exotic texture.should be expected to love seafood.
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Customarily the end of monsoon in Myanmar heralds an ideal climate stretching to around six to eight months for travel.
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Steps to cook
Marinate pork in a pot with fish sauce. salt. ginger for 15 minutes. Add water and boil till pork is tender and water evaporates. Place pork on a separate plate and let cool. Pound the pork slightly and break up into strands. Squeeze water of onion and garlic onto pork strands. Add vinegar.
Cook oil. Add onion and garlic and stir till golden. Add chili. turmeric and pork. Stir on slow fire till pork is crispy. Add sugar and stir lightly till sugar melts and is absorbed. Taste and adjust for salt and sugar.
Serves as a delicious dish to accompany rice.
Mya Zin
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For a learner in English language nothing thrills me as the discovery of a new word or a new usage that emerges in the current writing.
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Place scraped fish in a bowt. Add half of ginger, garlic, lemon grass, turmeric, chili, salt, sugar and knead fish and press repeating this several times. With wet fingers, take a tablespoon of the fish and make into a ball. Do this till fish is exhausted.
Bring the water to a boil. Place fish balls in water and let boil for 10 minutes. Strain the balls and set aside the water.
Cook the oil. When cooked, add the rest of the ginger, garlic, lemon grass, turmeric, chili to oil till light golden. Add the strained fish balls. Add fish sauce, sugar, tomato puree and the water which had been set aside. Add the coconut milk. Keep boiling for 10 minutes. Sprinkle cut coriander leaves. Adjust salt and sugar to taste.
Feather-back fish curry is ready to serve.
Mya Zin
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Rakhine nationals on the Bay of Bengal coast have a special way of making mohinga.the national dish.It is cooked different.served different.tastes different and is consumed different.
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Duck skin contains much fat and has a rougher texture. When we eat out we scarecly order roast duck because it's quite frustrating to separate the meat from the bone.
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Myanmar offers a variety of noodle dishes: friend noodles,noodles in broth, noodles in starch soup,coconut milk noodles Chinese Muslim style and noodle salad.
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As is natural each fish best produces when it is cooked in a certain way. or fora certain dish. Ngakhu and Ngagyi are best to make fish soup for mohinga. Likewise ngabat is best for stir-cooking.
800g ngabat
240g oil
1 tbs Chili powder
1/4 tsp turmericpowder
1.5 cm ginger to be pounded
2 stems citronella to be pounded
1 tbs garlic pounded
1/4 cup onion pounded
1 1/2 tbs fish sauce
1 tsp salt
2 cups water
Steps to cook
Marinate fish with turmeric. salt. fish sauce. Add fish to water in pan and remove when water boils. Debone and set aside. Strain the soup. Fry ginger. onion. garlic. citronella in oil till golden. Add chili powder. fish. soup. Put on slow fire. Cover for a while. Then uncover and keep stirring so that the ingredients do not stick until water evaporates and oil remains.
Remove from fire. Ready to serve.
Mya Zin
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An enjoyable breakfast for some people is goat brain with nan roti ( Indian bread). Some people pick out the head of the foul in a chicken dish to get at the brain.
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Myanmar "athoke" is rendered as "salad". However.it is more various and diverse than what is generally understood as salad.
There are the fruit salad. the leaf salad.the fish salad. the meat salad. the many kinds of noodle salad. and to top it all. there is the "rice hand-mixed salad". popular. readily available. easily concocted at home and loved by all guests. Myanmar and foreign. The ingredients of the rice hand-mixed salad are steamed rice. oil cooked with a little chili. glass noodles. egg noodles. boiled potatoes. fried bean curd. shredded papaya. fried shredded garlic. roasted pea powder. dried shrimp powder. tamarind liquor. fish sauce. all thoroughly mixed. not tossed.
Here is a simple chicken salad to serve three or four persons.
1 lb chicken cut into thin strips about 1 inch wide and 2 inches long
1 tbsp thinly sliced lemon grass
1 1/2 tbsp well-pounded parched rice
1/2 cup thinly sliced onion
1/2 cup coarsely chopped mint leaves
4 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 cup chopped coriander greens
1/2 tbsp ground dried chili
1 tbsp chopped spring onion
1/4 tsp sugar
1 lettuce plant
Steps to cook
Grill sliced chicken to medium rare.
In a mixing bowl. mix all remaining ingredients well. add chicken and mix. Serve on a bed of lettuce with spring onions.
Mya Zin
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The seventh lunar month of Thadingyut ( October ) is a month of many events.
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Myanmar has big rivers and broad chaungs teeming with fish.
Naturally, the Myanmar people are fond of fish, especially the fresh-water kind. Many tasty dishes have fish as the base, using one or the other of the many species. These dishes have the characteristic taste of Myanmar gravied dishes, steamed fish or deep-fried. Occasionally, a Myanmar dish may taste foreign when rusks or beaten egg are used to coat the fish to make fried fish balls or cutlets.
Ingredients
750g boiled deboned fish
250g mashed potato
1 tsp finely chopped onions
1 tsp green chilies
1 tsp half- ripe tomato
1/2 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 tsp chopped ginger
Steps to cook
1. Rusk crumbs and beaten egg for coating salt, pepper, lime juice to taste
2. Use peanut oil for frying
3. Mix the mashed potato and all the other ingredients with the boiled fish and leave for ten minutes to marinade.
4. Shape the cutlets by hand into rounds or ovals, dip in beaten egg and coat with rusk crumbs leave again for five minutes to set the coating. Deep fry golden brown in hot peanut oil.
5. Drain on kitchen paper and serve
Mya Zin
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Sticky rice is not generally eaten as the main component of a complete meal with curry dishes and a soup.
In the highlands one may be served rice which is sticky. But this is not the sticky rice of the plains. It is rice which happens to contain a higher percentage of gluten than lowland varieties. Sticky rice in the lowlands is the basis for the creation of various snacks and desserts. A family of three kinds of sticky rice is made into snacks. Steamed sticky rice with peas is one kind. Sticky rice with oil made golden is another. Sticky rice with butter which retains its white colour is silver rice.
Ingredients
4 cups sticky white rice
4 ½ cups sugar
6 cups coconut milk
½ cup butter
1/3 cup grated cheese
½ tsp. salt
Steps to cook
Soak rice in water for 5 hours. Take out and steam till well-cooked. Take coconut milk and put in pot. Add sugar and salt. Boil till reduced to one-third of original volume. Add butter. Stir thoroughly till a whole lump is formed and bottom of pot is seen. Set aside. Butter a tray. Put rice in tray and wake surface even. Sprinkle cheese and make surface smooth again. Put in oven and bake at 150 C till surface is golden. Remove, cool and cut into pieces. Serve.
Mya Zin
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The egg-plant is a bored Vegetable. It seems nothing good will come out of its slumberous ways. But not so. once at an exhibition in West Africa a thousand recipes were offered.
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For a tasty and crunchy cucumber salad, the following ingredients are needed.
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The followings are the ingredients to cook chicken curry in Myanmar Style.
Place the marinated chicken in a cooking pot. Add all the ingredients and cook till chicken is tender. Sustain the light gravy. Myanmar like a light gravy to sprinkle on their rice.
The chicken usually found on the table is a curry. The chicken has been smothered in a cloud of condiments and spices till the air is like the air of an Indian bazaar.
This recipe with its light and simple style brings memories of rustic Myanmar.
Khin Mya Hlaing
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Soup is an essential dish in the menu of most nations.
Westerners take their soup at the beginning of every meal before the main course,the Chinese,at the end and as far as I know,for most Asians, it is an accompanying dish through out the meal, something to wash down the solid foods. And though it may only be liquid nourishment, it is satisfying and refreshing. A meal without soup seems dry and unappetizing. Which reminds me of the eccentric but famous U.S. General Patton of World War II fame. During his campaign in the European Theatre after D-Day during World War II, it was said that he and his troops had advanced so far ahead that his supplies had run out particularly food and gasoline and he had sent urgent messages to headquarters for replenishment of supplies In demanding that food supplies for his men be sent ASAP, he mentioned that in the meanwhile his men had been surviving on 'rock soup'. When asked later what kind of ingredients had been used in this soup he replied testily that it was cooked with just rocks (collected from the roadside) and water. So, soup is truly something we cannot do without even during battle.
Whether it is the noonday meal or dinner, a soup, which is either hot and sour, or mild and sweet, always accompanies a Myanmar meal. Both are very easy to cook but it is important to use the ingredients in just the right proportions. The favourite vegetable used for both kinds of soup is the gourd.
Hot and Sour Gourd Soup
Ingredients
Half a medium sized gourd
Catfish - 2 (or more if preferred) of medium size (Other fish or raw/dried fish and shrimp may also be used)
Fish paste - 2 tablespoons
Fish/shrimp sauce - 2 teaspoons
Onions - 2 bulbs
Chilies - 5 pods
Garlic - 2 bulbs
Turmeric - ½ teaspoon
Groundnut oil -3 ounces
Tamarind - 3 ounces
Salt -to taste
Steps to cook
Cut the fish into 2 -inch lengths and wash thoroughly. Marinade with salt and turmeric.
Pound the dried chilies, onions and garlic together.
Wash tamarind thoroughly then soak in a bowl with hot water.
Cut the gourd into 2-inch strips and slice not too thinly. Wash and drain.
Boil the oil in a pot till it is cooked and then put in the pounded chilies, onion and garlic and fry. When this turns brown put in fish, and cut pieces of gourd a littlelater. Add fish paste dissolved in water. Cover and cook till the gourd is soft.
Add tamarind juice and fish sauce and salt to taste. Add about two cups of water. When it has come to the boil after about five minutes the hot and sour soup is ready to serve.
An easier way is to add all the ingredients, including the oil, and except the tamarind juice and cook till it comes to the boil and the gourd has softened. Add tamarind juice and cook till it comes to a boil. This is how it is cooked in the rural areas. this is known as the 'Lone Chet' method meaning cooking the whole lot at one go.
Sweet Gourd Soup
Ingredients
Gourd - a quarter of a medium sized gourd
Catfish - 2 of medium size, or 5 ounces of raw or dried prawns.
Fish paste - 2 ounces.
Fish or shrimp sauce - 2 ounces
Pepper - corn - half teaspoon
Garlic - 1 bulb
Steps to cook
Wash the fish thoroughly and grill. Bone when cooked and set aside.
Peel the gourd strips and slice.
Dissolve fish paste in water; crush garlic and add half of it together with ground pepper. Mix in the grilled fish with about two cups of water and cook till boiling hot.
When ready to serve add the sliced gourd and the remaining amount of crushed garlic and cook for a minute or so. The sliced gourd should not be overcooked. Add more ground pepper if preferred.
This soup is the delight of the Myanmar people and a variation is to add a handful of clear noodles.
Kyi Kyi Hla
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The coconut is a versatile fruit for the cook in the kitchen.
The fibrous outer shell may be used as a scrubber to scour pots and pans, or to provide a quick-burning high heat fuel. The tough inner shell can be used as a mug or fit a handle and it becomes a ladle. It can serve as a receptacle for the waste products of a kitchen or be the house-cat’s dinner dish. The coconut water inside the shell makes a refreshing drink and is a good companion to rum. It serves as a rehydration drink for a person suffering from "Delhi belly", and in case of dire need may be used as injection fluid.
The dried flesh of the coconut is copra which yields coconut oil. The flesh in its natural state provides a delicious snack when taken with a bite of toddy palm sugar or jaggery. It can be sliced or shredded as a garnish. It can form the base for various confections but it is the coconut cream which is squeezed from the flesh that provides the satisfying flavour to concoctions of all sorts - soups, curries, stews, and an infinite variety of candies and desserts. What follows is a simple but delicious chicken in coconut soup.
8 oz sliced boneless chicken meat
1 inch knob ginger sliced
6 cloves garlic
6 roots coriander
2 stalks lemon grass
6 seeds pepper corns
5 pods small green chilies
7 leaves lime
12 leaves coriander
2 cups thick first water of coconut milk
2 cups thin second water of coconut milk
¼ cup fish sauce
¼ cup lime juice
Steps to cook
Chop the garlic, coriander roots and lemon grass and put in a mortar, together with the peppercorns and half the ginger, then pound until smooth. Crush the chilies and shred the lime and coriander leaves. Bring half the thick coconut milk to boil, and stir fry for 4-5 minutes. Add chicken, remaining ginger and all the remaining coconut milk and bring back to the boil. Reduce heat and allow to simmer until the chicken is tender, then add the fish sauce, lime juice and chilies. Stir and cook for a further minute. Transfer to a soup tureen and sprinkle the shredded leaves as garnish. Enjoy.
Mya Zin