Shutki Chingri Diye Bandhakopi - Stir-Fried Cabbage with Dried Shrimp

Stir-Fried Cabbage with Dried Shrimp

Credit for this recipe goes to Mum who used to cook shredded cabbage with black pepper and eggs. I've blogged before about Grated Cabbage with Eggs that is similar to this. Adding the shrimp powder (entirely optional) adds a lovely Burmese touch to this dish.

Effortless Balachaung

Store-bought Balachaung

Less than half a mile from our home, a tiny grocery store opened its doors a couple of years ago. It's stuck at the end of the strip mall and beckons passersby with its flashing lights strung around the perimeter of its windows. It has a magical name - Alladin Spices & Groceries. From the name it's a good guess that it's an Indian store - in particular, a Bangladeshi store. When it first opened, Prasun & I ventured in, but we weren't terribly impressed because it was cramped and dingy and they were still stocking their shelves. Besides, the products didn't look too interesting. No kasundi available, for example, so not truly a Bengali store.

Two years later, I needed to buy red lentils, also known as masuri dal. I was reluctant to travel 5 miles to Patel Bros. and decided to pick it up at Alladin. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the store appeared much bigger and brighter. The bag of lentils I needed was close enough to the entrance that I could have made a quick exit, but decided instead to give the store another look-over. Kasundi on the shelf (yay!) and even though I couldn't understand the lingo uttered by the stock boys, words like 'balti' and 'kumurehsah' makes me believe they were speaking chydgah, a dialect from Chittagong. The inventory was much more varied and as I walked around the back of the store, came across this gem.

Balachaung in a Package!

Burmese Squash with Dried Shrimp

Squash with Dried Shrimp

Chayote squash is practically tasteless and takes on the flavor of whatever it's cooked with. Shrimp goes really well with this squash and dried shrimp even better! 

This reminds me of Mum who made this often, but she used fresh shrimp. Dried whole shrimp has intense flavor but is chewy, so I microwaved the package of shrimp in a cup of water. To speed up the cooking process, I also pressure cooked this dish which softened the shrimp and cooked the squash in ten minutes.

Be careful with the salt because there's plenty of it in the dried shrimp.

Burmese Shrimp Fried Rice - Htamin Kyaw

Htamin Kyaw

What makes this fried rice Burmese? The addition of dried shrimp and fish sauce. Day-old white rice from the Chinese restaurant is perfect for making fried rice. A small portion of the sauces, along with dried chili flakes, mixed into the rice helps distribute taste and color throughout the fried rice. Dried shrimp imparts a lovely umami flavor to this dish.

To make a white fried rice increase the fish sauce to 4+1 tablespoons of fish sauce and omit the soy sauce. There's no need to add salt because both fish and soy sauce are loaded with salt.

Burmese Dry Balachaung - Dried Shrimp Condiment

Dry Balachaung

Balachaung on Buttered Toast
My all-time favourite snack

This popular condiment is served as a part of any Burmese meal.  It imparts an "umami" flavour when sprinkled over buttered toast, plain rice & butter, lentils, et al. 

Make sure to open all the doors and windows in your home to expel the aroma of roasting dried shrimp, which to me is wonderful but to those who didn't grow up with it, is abhorrent!