Storecupboard Mohinga Recipe

The global pandemic is still sadly a fact of life, and although lockdown is easing to various degrees, here in the UK at least, it remains difficult to get hold of certain items in shops and supermarkets.

To this end, I have created a very heavily adapted version of Burma’s national dish mohinga, so any Burmese food traditionalists should probably avert their eyes now (though it’s not quite Stone Soup).

After experimentation, I managed to strip out anything that might conceivably be hard to find – for example, the crackers are made from red lentils instead of the usual chana dal or yellow split peas. I even substituted the lemongrass which is actually one of the main ingredients, though I have still mentioned it below in case you are able to locate some.

The only fresh items you will need are a potato, an egg, a lemon or lime, and a banana. Maybe some coriander.

The potato will definitely raise eyebrows, especially since they don’t appear in very many Burmese dishes. In fact, we don’t even have our own word for them and instead have borrowed the South Asian word aloo . However, as I said, if you’re reading this from outside of Asia, you are more likely to have a potato to hand than the usual broth thickeners of gram flour or rice flour, so bite your lip,. close your eyes and go with the flow for now …

Mohinga (Burmese Fish Noodle Soup)
and Pe Kyaw (Pea Crackers)

INGREDIENTS

For the pea crackers:

2 tbsp dried red lentils
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbsp self-raising flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp MSG or 1 tsp vegetable stock (if using stock, don’t add salt)
Vegetable oil

For the soup:

1 medium floury potato (250g unpeeled weight), peeled and quartered
1 tsp ground coriander (or 6 coriander stems, minced to a paste)
1 tsp ground ginger (or 1 cm root ginger, minced to a paste)
1 tsp garlic powder (or 6 cloves of garlic, minced to a paste)
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp mild paprika
2 tins of mackerel or sardines in spring water, oil or brine (about 250g)
2 tbsp cornflour
1 vegetable stock cube or 1 tbsp vegetable bouillon powder
1 medium onion (150g unpeeled weight), peeled and quartered
Zest of a lemon or lime or 2 stalks lemongrass or 1 tbsp lemongrass paste
2cm piece of banana peel
Black pepper
·1 tbsp fish sauce

To serve:

Cooked noodles (preferably thin rice noodles/rice vermicelli, but I used Vietnamese bun as I’d run out)
Hard-boiled egg, quartered
Lemon or lime wedges
Coriander leaves, shredded (optional)
Chilli flakes or chilli oil (optional)
Crispy fried garlic (optional)
Crispy fried shallots (optional)

Put the lentils and the bicarbonate of soda in a bowl with 100ml of just-boiled water and leave to soak for an hour.

Meanwhile, boil the potato in 500ml water for 30 minutes or until completely soft. Do not drain, but set to one side. In another saucepan, heat 3 tablespoons of oil on medium and then add the ground coriander, ginger, garlic, turmeric and paprika. Allow to sizzle in the hot oil until fragrant (30 seconds if using dry spices or 2 minutes if using fresh), and then add the boiled potato, still reserving the boiling water, and mash the potato into the spices with a fork or masher.

Now add the tinned fish plus their brine or oil to the pan and mash everything again until the contents of the pan are as smooth as possible (if the fish is in brine or spring water, add two tablespoons of oil). Whisk the cornflour with 100ml of water and then add to the pan. Crumble in the stock cube and add the water you used to boil the potato plus another litre of water. Turn the heat up, put the lid on and bring the pan to the boil. Turn the heat down and then, with the lid askew to let some steam out, simmer on medium for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time.

While the soup is simmering, drain the lentils thoroughly and add the self-raising flour, salt, sugar, MSG and 50ml water, whisk into a batter and leave to soak for 30 minutes.

Stir the fish soup and then add the quartered onion, the citrus zest or lemongrass , and the banana peel* to the saucepan and simmer for another 20 minutes until it has thickened to the consistency of lentil soup and the onion has softened and become translucent.

Meanwhile, it’s time to make the lentil crackers. Heat 2cm depth of oil in a frying pan on medium-high till you feel waves of heat coming from the pan with the palm of your hand. Stir the batter to redistribute the lentils evenly and then carefully drop a tablespoon full into the hot oil. The batter will spread out into a cracker - you should be able to fit three crackers in the pan.

Fry the crackers for 2 minutes and then use chopsticks or a spatula to flip and fry them for another 2 minutes. Remove the crackers from the oil and drain them on kitchen paper and make another three crackers - the crackers will crisp up as they cool. Note that you can reuse the frying oil for cooking – in Burmese, it’s called si chet (“cooked oil”) and it’s also used to dress noodles and salads because of its toasted flavour.

Add 3-4 grinds/shakes of pepper and the fish sauce to the fish soup, stir well and the mohinga is ready to assemble – place a small nest of noodles in each bowl, submerge with fish soup, top with egg, coriander and lime and the other garnishes if you have them, and dig in. Offer seconds of soup and garnishes without noodles, as is the usual Burmese practice, but please try not to use chopsticks or a fork, since mohinga should be eaten with a spoon.

And when this is all over, you can try the standard version of my mohinga recipe here where the Observer Food Monthly rated it as one of their “20 Best Noodle Recipes”.

*“Proper” mohinga has a unique fragrance imparted by the use of banana stem (texture too, rather like lotus root). Sadly, it’s nearly impossible to get hold of the stuff outside of Burma, but banana blossom or in this case, banana peel gives a passable effect. And yes, it is perfectly safe to eat banana peel but feel free to fish it out.