Burmese Stir-Fried Spinach & Eggplants

Burmese Spinach & Eggplants

Supermarkets now stock bags and tubs of triple washed spinach which cuts down on prep time. Baby spinach leaves are small enough to leave whole and that cuts down on prep time because they don't need to be chopped.

I fry the eggplant first then add the spinach, cooking it just until wilted.The leaves have to be moved from the bottom of the pan to the top several times because the pan is usually too small to accommodate the entire contents of the bag or tub.

Sorrel

Sorrel is an herb, delicious and tart, that look very much like spinach. If sown in the ground, this vigourous plant will take over just like mint. I've bought it at the farmer's market as seedlings and potted them successfully. They die back in the winter and return in the spring. The tender & tangy greens are edible when they first sprout but become more and more bitter as they mature. 

To emulate the tangy flavour of sorrel and roselle leaves (chin baung ywet in Burmese), I add the juice of a lime just before removing this dish from the stove. 

Stir-Fried Bitter Melon & Potatoes

Karola Alu Bhaja

Bitter melon is a super food for diabetics and can be cooked in a variety of ways. Here I've simply stir-fried it with potatoes and pumped up the taste with shrimp floss powder.

Shrimp Powder

The bitter melons or ucche I found in the Indian supermarket were young and tender, so I left the seeds intact. They added a crunch in contrast to the soft potatoes. This side dish goes well with hot rice or chapatis/tortilla.

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 Stewed Eggplant - Khayan Thee Hin

A form of sipyan, this eggplant dish is so much easier to prepare because everything is combined in a skillet and left to cook on its own.  Out of sheer habit, I scraped the bottom of the pan to make sure it wasn't sticking, but that was not necessary at all. Once the tomatoes cooked down, the cooking liquids covered the eggplant pieces which then stewed in the resulting juices. The bulk of the flavour and umami was imparted by a combination of peanuts, shrimp paste and dried shrimp powder.

Here are several options for vegans. To achieve umami flavour without using fish-/seafood-based sauces, would be to use mushroom sauce and dried shiitake mushrooms. Mushroom sauce is used by vegans to replace oyster sauce and the soaking liquid from dried shiitake mushrooms both impart strong umami flavour. More difficult to come by is dried konbu or kelp (seaweed) which is used to make konbu dashi. A third option would be to use Ajinomoto or MSG.

Serve this as a side over a mound of steamed rice, preferably coconut rice or Ohn Htamin.

Burmese Stir-Fried Cabbage with Dried Shrimp & Eggs

Burmese Stir-Fried Cabbage
with Dried Shrimp & Eggs

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 that is similar to this. Adding the shrimp powder (entirely optional) adds a lovely Burmese touch to this dish.

Grated Cabbage with Eggs

Deem Diye Bandha Kopi

Credit for this recipe goes to Mum who used to cook shredded cabbage with black pepper and eggs. I find it easier to grate the cabbage in the food processor and do the same with the onions and garlic. Adding the shrimp powder (entirely optional) adds a lovely Burmese touch to this dish.