Quick & Easy Burmese Ohno Khauk Swe - Coconut Chicken Noodle Soup

Ohno Khauk Swe in the Bowl
Boiled Egg Noodles
Chicken in Coconut Soup
Garnishes

This Burmese meal is a popular street food that is brought to your doorstep by hawkers on foot in Yangon, Myanmar. It is a breakfast meal which we can now have any time of the day because it's prepared at home.

Ohno Khauk Swe in the Bowl

The one-pot meal comprises a bowl of noodles topped with chicken in a coconut soup and garnished with a number of fresh and deep-fried condiments. Gather friends and family together to share in this heartwarming meal that is ideal for a rainy or snowy day.

Boiled Egg Noodles

Fresh egg noodles are readily available in North America at Asian markets. These are easy to prepare by simply soaking in boiling water for less than 5 minutes. Dried egg noodles take between 10-12 minutes to cook through. Either way, the noodles should be cooked just prior to serving and should be drained and rinsed in cold water to prevent clumping.

Garnishes

2-3 limes, cut in wedges

Cilantro, chopped

6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled & diced

Deep-fried garlic

1 large or 2 medium white onion, sliced

1 bunch green onions, diced

Deep-fried diced onions

2 Tbsp. chickpea flour, toasted in a dry skillet until golden brown

Chicken in Coconut Soup

This soup could be quite tedious to prepare as outlined in a previous post. I've been toying with this quick and easy method for preparing this dish which usually requires that the chicken be browned and onion made into a paste in the blender. 

The shortcuts used to make this soup included the use of a pressure cooker to cook a whole chicken in a red lentil soup base that was flavoured with diced onions, garlic, lemon grass powder and paprika. The cooked red lentils served to thicken the soup and flavour it.

An alternative method to cooking this in a pressure cooker is to use a slow cooker or crock pot. Follow steps 1 through 7 on low setting for 6 hours or on high for 4 hours. Shred the chicken as in step 7 and add back to the crock pot along with the coconut milk and cook for another half an hour.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, cut in 8 pieces & marinated in 1/2 salt & 1/4 tsp. turmeric.

1 cup red lentils or masoor dal, washed and drained

4 cups chicken broth or water

1 large onion, peeled & minced

8-10 cloves garlic, peeled & minced

1 tsp. Kashmiri mirch/paprika/cayenne pepper

1 tsp. lemon grass powder

1 tsp. shrimp powder

1 tsp. shrimp paste

1 (14 oz.) can coconut milk (cream settles on top of can)

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients, except coconut milk, in a pressure cooker.
2. Bring to a boil and adjust salt to taste.
3. Cover, bring to full pressure and lower heat to medium.
4. Simmer for 20 minutes, remove from heat and allow pressure to dissipate.
5. Remove cover from pressure cooker and carefully take out chicken pieces.
6. Separate chicken from bones & discard skin and bones.
7. Chop chicken into bite-size pieces and return to pressure cooker.
8. Add coconut milk plus cream and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes.

Allow guests to serve themselves with noodles, soup and garnishes.

Ohno Khauk Swe Made Easy

Coconut Chicken Soup

Lunch is Ready!

My bowl of Ohno Khauk Swe

I've made this meal many times and usually follow the recipe used by my family. You may notice that it's not a simple preparation, so this time I made several modifications to simplify the process. First of all, I planned ahead and did the shopping earlier in the week. Two nights before, after making sure that the ground chicken and chicken thighs had been refrigerated to thaw overnight, I made the onion-garlic-ginger-chili paste and refrigerated that also. The night before, I prepared the soup to which I made one time-saving change. Instead of roasting the half-cup of chickpea flour used to thicken the soup, I cooked half a cup of red lentils (masoor dal) in two cups of water and added it to the soup along with the coconut milk towards the end. This not only saved a whole lot of time, but also added a lovely flavour and creaminess to the soup. It also lightened the soup so it was not as rich as in the original recipe. On the day of the lunch, all I had to do was heat the soup, cook the noodles and prepare the garnishes. Using ready-made deep fried onions and garlic are further time-saving ways of simplifying the preparation of this meal.

Ohno Khawkswe

Burmese Coconut Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken Soup 

The garnishes, clockwise from top left:
cilantro, green onions, hard boiled eggs, fried garlic,
fried onions, limes, red chili flakes.