Burmese Pickled Tea Leaves Salad - Laphet Thoht

Laphet Thoht - Ready to Hand-Mix 

Today I am in seventh heaven. We just had Burmese pickled tea leaves salad or Laphet Thoht for lunch. Laphet is tea leaves and Thoht is hand-mixed salad. The biggest gratification was watching Hubby enjoy his portion of the salad. After lunch was over he told me he'd just read a medical article that claims green tea boosts memory. The unique flavours of this salad still linger in my mouth and makes me reluctant to eat anything which may destroy that taste.

Get the recipe here or read on for the pictorial view.

Laphet (Pickled Tea Leaves)
item #486  A-Yee-Taung Pickled Tea Leaves - Original Flavour (Medium)

It all begins with these pickled tea leaves that I sourced all the way from the U.K. 

Fried Beans & Spice Mixture
Item #1667 Yu-Za-Na Double Fried Crispy Spices (Medium)

Fried Split Chickpeas
Item #978 A-Yee-Taung Fried Pea (Ka Lar-Pell)

Fried Flat Beans
Item #498 A-Yee-Taung Brand Fried Beans

Along with the pickled tea leaves, I also purchased the crunchy accompaniments that are an integral part of this salad. When I run out, I will buy these items from a U.S. source which is much cheaper for me.

Dressing Ingredients

From my Asian pantry I gathered ingredients for the dressing, including 1 tablespoon dark sesame oil, 2 teaspoons rice wine and 2 tablesppons fish sauce for umami.

Salad Ingredients

Sliced, diced and julienned salad ingredients of shredded Korean cabbage (which contains less moisture than Chinese cabbage and which I prefer over raw cabbage), diced green chilies, julienned seedless English cucumber and a sliced Roma tomato.

Pounded Laphet

Laphet &
Salad Ingredients

To be truthful, I tasted the laphet straight out of the packet and the flavour was nothing to rave about. It tasted like strained green tea leaves. My best friend and sister, Rene, had gifted me a mortar and pestle that have become an essential part of my Burmese kitchen. Since the salad was to feed only two people, I used one-sixth (3 oz.) of the package of pickled tea leaves, added 2 teaspoons of dried shrimp powder (pounded dried shrimp with chili) 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, 1 diced green chili, 2 cloves of peeled garlic, half a teaspoon of salt and pounded the heck out of the tea leaves.

Ready to Hand-Mix

The salad ingredients, sauce ingredients, crispy fried accompaniments and the pickled poinded tea leaves were dumped into a big stainless steel bowl and mixed together thoroughly by hand.

Salad is garnished with
raw and deep fried onions

Finally, the salad was ready to be served, garnished with a generous squeeze of lime, slivered raw onions and deep fried onions.

Cheers, everybody!