Food and Life in Myanmar
Eggs in Tomato Sauce, Myanmar Style
This is one of my favorite Myanmar dishes to make. First, because it’s fun to peel so many boiled eggs at once! Second, because it doesn’t involve processing/cleaning any meat (this can take a lot of time if you shop at wet markets in Myanmar). And best of all, the dish keeps really well in the fridge for several days—it’s a great make-ahead meal, and the flavors improve over time, much like with a pot of soup. …
With thanks to my friend Daw Phyu, who always passes the most delicious food to me across the fence between our homes. Thank you for cooking with me and helping me to learn this recipe. I will always love your food.
A note about ingredients for making this curry:
Lots of Myanmar curries have a seafood component. This dish, as taught to me by my friend Daw Phyu, often includes a handful of fresh shrimp and a teaspoon of fish paste.…
Well, here we are, three years after I started this blog, and I am finally getting around to posting the recipe for which it is named. Better late than never, right? Pickled tea leaves are a favorite of mine, and I think there is nothing like them in the world. I am a bit at a loss to describe them adequately. They have the flavor of green tea, with the flavor of fermentation; they are slightly bitter, slightly salty, and they leave a bit of a tangy aftertaste on the tongue for a few moments.…
Myanmar is not short on flavorful vegetarian dishes—this stew is another example of that! I love this dish because it can easily be made in bulk and lasts a few meals and it is really inexpensive. Also, if I have any leftover meat curry from a previous meal, I can easily add it in to give the whole meal extra protein and flavor (and use up leftovers in the process–always a win).
I struggled to name this recipe; in Burmese, part of its name contains a pejorative term for an ethnic group in Myanmar.…
I am typically not a huge fan of either bean sprouts or tofu. However, this particular arrangement of the two has become a new favorite in our house. Some days, I don’t get to the market early enough to get the best meat, and some days, I just don’t feel like cooking meat; these sorts of days often come on the heels of meat purchases that proved to be tough and unpalatable. (My last attempt at beef curry involved what must have been a very old water buffalo.…
Sour Soup (Chin Hin)
When we moved here last January, one of the first dishes I fell for was sour soup. It is served alongside curry dishes at many small curry and rice shops, and you usually are served a bottomless bowl of the stuff. There are a ton of variations on it, and I hope to share more of them with you in the months to come. This soup is called sour soup, but I don’t even know if the English word “sour” would be an apt description for it.
This post hopefully ends the longest period of silence on the blog for the foreseeable future. Shortly after launching this blog in April, I got a case of heat exhaustion in the 100+ degree weather, and from then on I spent about 12 hours a day in bed for the remainder of my pregnancy. After giving birth and a few weeks of some postpartum health drama, we’re slowly easing into a new normal as a family of three. Here’s hoping that involves more regularity in sharing our overseas food life with you!…
This salad was my first invention upon settling into our new home in Yangon. It also symbolizes my initiation into shopping Myanmar style (that is to say, open air market). Before going out to shop, I sat down with my vegetable picture chart and my fluent husband and made a list of the things I’d need, sounding out the name of each ingredient, writing it down, and practicing it a few times.
Emboldened by my new arsenal of vocabulary, we strode out to the market, basket in hand.…
