Htamin Laphet Thoke

 

Htamin Laphet Thoke

A cup of cooked long grain rice was mixed into Laphet Thoke for a sumptuous lunch. Tea Leaves Salad is a famous Burmese dish that is so easy to make. Once the ingredients are procured, all that is needed is for everything to be dumped into a bowl and mixed thoroughly by hand.

 Ingredients

Mohinga Thoke - Burmese Cold Noodle Salad

Mohinga Thoke 

Prepped Ingredients

An Internet recipe served as the basis for this salad but I made many adjustments to suit my taste. The addition of dark sesame oil (toasted), fried legumes (pei kyaw) and minced green chilies pumped up the heat along with added crunch and flavour. Blanching the shredded cabbage is how I prefer to use it in Burmese salads. My husband and fiercest food critic ate every last crumb on his plate while his eyes watered and his scalp perspired. It was made with just me in mind so the peppers were diced with the seeds intact, but he asked to try it and loved it!

The recipe called for rice vermicelli, but all I had was tapioca vermicelli that had no instructions on the package. My first attempt at cooking these noodles turned to mush, so I soaked the noodles in hot tap water and microwaved on high power at 30 second intervals for a total of 2 minutes with excellent results.

Note: There's no need to add salt because the fish sauce is salty enough.

Burmese Tofu Salad

Tofu Salad

I've been trying to include more protein in my diet, so tofu has featured on my grocery list  of late. I have it in Miso Soup and thought why not substitute soybean tofu for chickpea tohu. Admittedly, it's not half as tasty as Burmese Tohu Salad, but it satiated my craving for Burmese flavours just as well. I used dry balachaung and pickled jalapeno peppers to garnish the salad.

Burmese Cauliflower Salad

Baked Cauliflower Salad

There was a main dish already prepared for dinner today and a cauliflower in the fridge that needed to be used up. The first thing that comes to mind when I think cauliflower is the Indian Alu Gobi, but it was too complicated at that late hour. 

Then I remembered coming across a Burmese recipe for a roasted cauliflower salad that was very easy and doable at short notice. 

So here is an adaptation of that recipe which, for my taste buds, used too much shrimp powder, fish sauce and lime juice. So I toned down those ingredients and ramped up the garlic also because I wanted to give vegetarians the option of omitting shrimp powder and fish sauce. The black sesame seeds used as a garnish was replaced with deep-fried flat beans (Burmese: pe hlaw kyaw) because I was out of sesame seeds.

Uncertain what it would taste like, I was pleasantly surprised how very good this tasted. Hubby took a second and third helping, so it may be a frequent item at our dinner table!

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower, cut into small florets

4 Tbsp. vegetable oil

salt to taste

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 small red onion, diced

6 cloves garlic, diced

1 green chili, diced

1 generous handful cilantro, diced

1 lime, zested and juiced

1 Tbsp. dried shrimp powder (optional for vegetarians)

2 tsp. fish sauce (optional for vegetarians)

salt to taste

deep-fried flat beans (pe hlaw kyaw) for garnish

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400*F.
2. Toss cauliflower florets with next three ingredients and spread in a single layer on a baking pan.
3. Bake at 400*F for 15 minutes, turn florets over and bake for another 15 minutes until golden brown.
4. Remove cauliflower from oven and transfer to a mixing bowl, along with remaining ingredients, except fried flat beans.
5. Toss until well combined, adjust salt to tast and garnish with deep-fried flat beans.

Serve as a side dish with steamed rice.

Burmese Tomato Salad - Kha Yan Chin Thee Thoke

Burmese Tomato Salad

This is a light and refreshing salad that is always polished off by our guests in the blink of an eye. It could be because it's served as a first course and the crowd is hungry, but I think the soft texture of the tomatoes contrasting with the crunchiness of the onions, deep-fried beans and lettuce have a lot to do with this being a favorite at our Burmese table.

Line the salad dish with finely sliced romaine lettuce and mound the tomatoes and other ingredients over the lettuce so that the juices from the tomatoes and dressing can drain to the bottom, leaving the tomatoes from getting soggy.

This salad is best served chilled for at least an hour. The dressing can be poured on the salad just prior to serving.

Ingredients:

1 romaine lettuce heart, sliced thinly

1 small onion, peeled, halves and sliced in thin crescents

5 medium tomatoes, halved and sliced in thin crescents

1 handful cilantro, 1/4 left whole and the rest minced

Juice of 1 lime

1 tsp. fish sauce (optional for vegetarians)

salt to taste

2 Tbsp. deep fried beans (if available)

2 Tbsp. roasted peanuts, chopped

1 Tbsp. deep fried onions

1 tsp. deep fried garlic

Directions:

1. Soak sliced onions in cold water for 15-20 minutes and drain.
2. Combine sliced tomatoes, onions, minced cilantro and season with salt.
3. Chill until ready to serve.
4. Line salad dish with lettuce and mound tomato mixture on top along with juices.
5. Whisk lime juice and fish sauce together and pour over tomatoes.
6. Garnish with last 4 ingredients and serve.

Burmese Kyazan Thohk - Bean Thread Vermicelli Noodle Salad

Burmese Noodle Salad

Similar to Htamin Let Thohk (Hand-Mixed Rice Salad), this salad is made with bean thread vermicelli noodles and is also mixed by hand.

Bean Thread Vermicelli Noodles

When these noodles are soaked in hot water and allowed to cool, they soften, turn from opaque to transparent and develop a bouncy bite. On their own, the noodles are tasteless which is why, after softening, I soak them again in a mixture of sauces so that the taste of the ingredients are distributed throughout the salad.

Hand-Mixed Noodle Salad

Ingredients: (serves 2)

1 pkg. bean thread vermicelli noodles

2 cups boiling water

2 Tbsp. soy sauce

1 tsp. fish sauce

½ tsp. vinegar

4 Tbsp. chili-garlic oil

1 (8 oz.) cup tamarind juice

1 tsp. chili powder

salt to taste

¼ cabbage or 1 Romaine lettuce, shredded

2 eggs, boiled & chopped

4 Tbsp. chickpea flour (besan), toasted

2 Tbsp. dried shrimp powder

1/2 cup deep-fried onions

1/2 cup deep-fried garlic

2 limes, cut in eighths

Directions:

1. Boil 2 cups of water, remove from heat, add noodles and soak until cool. 
2. Drain noodles and mix with soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, chili-garlic oil and tamarind juice and set aside to allow flavours to permeate.
3. Combine all ingredients (except eggs) and mix thoroughly by hand.
4. Garnish with chopped eggs and serve.

Burmese Laphet Thoht - The Recipe

Burmese Tea Leaves Salad

A very unique salad that Myanmar is famous for, the local population relishes and that visitors to the country must seek out is Laphet Thoht or Pickled Tea Leaves Salad. This is the recipe for that salad for which the sources for some of the ingredients and details (with photographs) of the procedure were described on my blog recently.

Burmese Nga Hpet Thoke - Fish Cake Salad

Fish Cake Salad

A quick & easy salad using fish cakes that are available in most Asian grocery stores. There is no mention of salt because the fish cakes are already seasoned and cooked and the fish sauce is salty. This salad is salty, tangy, crunchy and very tasty.

Burmese Roasted Eggplant Salad - Khayan Thee Pope Thoke

Burmese Begoon Pora

For all you eggplant lovers out there, here is a quick and easy hand-mixed salad, ideal for a hot summer day. It is perfect served as part of a Burmese meal with Basmati rice or as a starter with pita triangles.

Khawkswe Thoke

Khawswe Thoke

There's always plenty left over from an Ohno Khawkswe feast.

Combine the leftover noodles, chicken soup and all the garnishes (except lime wedges, roasted red chili flakes, fried onion and garlic) into the saucepan in which the soup was made, and refrigerate overnight.  This allows the noodles to absorb the gravy and the garnishes flavor the entire dish beautifully.

Make a flavoured oil. Place a Tbsp. of roasted red chili flakes, fried onion and garlic in a glass jar and fill with heated vegetable oil. This chili, onion and garlic flavoured oil is perfect as a garnish for any Burmese thoke (salad) dishes.

To serve the Khawkswe Thoke, fill a serving bowl with the noodles and heat it in the microwave. Garnish with flavoured oil, more fried onions & garlic, and a generous squeeze of lime wedges.

Enjoy!