Ohn no khao swe

Ingredients

• Wheat noodles500 g
• Chicken thigh — in small pieces700 g
• Coconut milk600 ml
• Chickpea flour60 g
• Onions3
• Garlic6 clove
• Ginger30 g
• Turmeric2 tsp
• Paprika1 tbsp
• Fish sauce3 tbsp
• Eggs — boiled, to serve5
• Limes3
• Chilli flakes2 tsp
• Vegetable oil100 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

   Pound the onion, garlic and ginger to a paste and fry it in oil with the turmeric and paprika.

   12 min

2. 2

   Add the chicken in small pieces and fry it until it whitens all over.

   10 min

3. 3

   Add a litre of water and the fish sauce and simmer twenty minutes.

   22 min

4. 4

   Slake the chickpea flour in a cup of cold water until completely smooth and lump-free.

   5 min

5. 5

   Pour the slaked flour into the broth in a thin stream, whisking without stopping.

   6 min

6. 6

   Cook ten minutes to thicken, add the coconut milk and warm it five minutes without boiling.

   17 min

7. 7

   Boil the noodles, divide them between bowls, ladle over the broth and serve with egg, lime and chilli.

   12 min

About the dish

The broth is thickened with chickpea flour slaked in cold water. It gives a velvet body and a faint nuttiness — cornflour gives the same thickness but not the flavour.

The chicken is cut small and stewed in the paste before the coconut goes in. The milk meets a finished base, and after that the broth is only warmed.

The serving follows mohinga: boiled egg, fried noodles, lime, chilli and fried onion go on the table, and each person builds their own bowl.

Worth knowing

• — Slake the chickpea flour in cold water only. In hot broth it seizes into lumps nothing breaks up.
• — The broth thickens on cooling. Reheat it with water and stir constantly; chickpea flour settles and catches.
• — Keep the noodles apart and ladle over them at serving. In the broth they swell and drink all the liquid within ten minutes.

Nutrition

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

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

42 g

Fat

34 g

Carbs

66 g

More from Myanmar

• Mohinga — Rice noodles in a thick fish broth built on banana stem. Breakfast, and Myanmar's unofficial national dish.
• Lahpet thoke — A salad of fermented tea leaves with fried beans, nuts and garlic.
• Shan noodles — Rice noodles with a tomato and chicken sauce, pickled greens and ground peanuts.