Lahpet thoke

Ingredients

• Fermented tea leaves150 g
• Fried peanuts80 g
• Fried broad beans60 g
• Sesame seeds40 g
• Garlic — thinly sliced6 clove
• Tomatoes2
• Cabbage — finely shredded200 g
• Chilli2
• Lime2
• Fish sauce2 tbsp
• Vegetable oil60 ml
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Fry the garlic slices in oil until golden and lift them out at once; a few seconds more and they turn bitter.

   6 min

2. 2

   Toast the sesame in a dry pan until fragrant, two minutes, stirring.

   4 min

3. 3

   Rinse the tea paste in cold water if it is very salty and squeeze it dry.

   5 min

4. 4

   Shred the cabbage fine, cut the tomatoes into wedges and the chilli into rings.

   10 min

5. 5

   Combine everything in a bowl with the peanuts, beans, sesame, garlic oil, fish sauce and lime juice.

   5 min

6. 6

   Toss it with your hands immediately before serving and scatter the fried garlic over the top.

   3 min

About the dish

Tea here is eaten rather than drunk. The leaves are fermented underground for weeks into a sour, bitter paste unlike anything else; in Myanmar it is sold in every shop.

The salad is built on contrast: the soft tea paste against four kinds of fried crunch — peanut, broad bean, sesame and garlic. Remove any one and it falls flat.

Lahpet is offered to guests, served at the end of a meal, and given as a gesture of reconciliation. It is also the only salad in the world with tea as its main ingredient.

Worth knowing

• — Toss it at the last moment: lime softens the nuts within ten minutes and the crunch disappears.
• — The vegetarian version uses soy sauce instead of fish sauce. The difference is audible in the taste, but the dish stays itself.
• — There is no substitute for the tea paste. Green tea soaked in water gives bitterness without the sourness or the ferment — that would not be lahpet.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

340 kcal

Protein

14 g

Fat

24 g

Carbs

20 g

More from Myanmar

• Mohinga — Rice noodles in a thick fish broth built on banana stem. Breakfast, and Myanmar's unofficial national dish.