'Mandalay' cookbook: Burmese recipes from fried fish curry to bean fritters

If this is your first foray into Burmese cooking, you can't go wrong with some of these classic dishes

Added to rices and with soupy curries, this fiery salsa only uses a few ingredients (Cristian Barnett)

Charred tomato salsa – pan htway hpyaw

This popular condiment is ladled on top of rice and served with soupy curries. It’s made from surprisingly very few ingredients, but it will dance on your tongue like fireworks. It's traditionally made as a smooth salsa, but feel free to keep it chunky. The important thing is to be brave and let the ingredients blacken and burn, as that’s the magic that makes the salsa sing.

Serves 4–6 as a side dish

3 medium tomatoes
6 garlic cloves, skin on
3 green finger chillies
5cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
½ teaspoon salt
juice from ¼ lime
coriander leaves, shredded

Place the tomatoes, garlic and chillies on a piece of foil and char their skins using a cook’s blowtorch, or under a very hot grill. Open your windows or turn on your extractor fan as it will get very smoky and pungent especially when charring the chilli. You want the skins to blacken quickly without cooking the flesh inside.

Remove and leave to cool, then peel the garlic and place in a food processor or blender. Keep the skins on the tomatoes and chillies, and blitz with the garlic to a rough paste. Alternatively, if you prefer a chunkier-textured salsa you can chop the ingredients by hand.

Scoop out the mixture and place in a small bowl. Add the ginger, salt and lime juice, and mix well. Top with the coriander leaves and serve with bachelor’s chicken curry and steamed rice, or with any of the fritters.

(Cristian Barnett)

Fried fish curry – ngar kyaw chet

Serves 2–4

This dish is usually made with fish ‘steaks’ aka cutlets, but it is just as good with fillets or whole fish. The type of fish doesn’t really matter either as the luscious, spicy sauce is the thing, so it works equally well with, say,cod or salmon.

For the fish

1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
¼ teaspoon MSG or ½ tablespoon chicken or vegetable bouillon
1 whole sea bream or sea bass, or 4 basa or catfish slices (sold frozen in Asian supermarkets)
120ml groundnut oil or other neutral-tasting oil, plus an extra 2 tablespoons

For the sauce

4 medium onions, sliced thinly
⅓ standard tin of chopped tomatoes (about 135g)
3 fresh tomatoes, diced
1 tablespoon fish sauce
¼ teaspoon MSG or 1 tablespoon chicken or vegetable bouillon

For the garnish

2 finger chillies
handful of coriander leaves, chopped

Mix the salt, flour, turmeric and MSG in a large dish, then add the fish. Turn the fish over in the seasonings, making sure it is thoroughly coated. Heat the 120ml of oil in a wok or large frying pan over a high heat until sizzling, then carefully add the fish. Fry for 2–3 minutes on each side. Remove the fish using a slotted spoon and set to one side on a dish.

In the same wok, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil over a high heat and add the sauce ingredients. Fry for 5 minutes, tossing and stirring regularly. Turn the heat down to medium-high and continue to fry for another 10 minutes. Add the fish and the chillies, and toss gently in the sauce. Dish up on a platter, scatter the coriander leaves on top and serve with steamed rice.

(Cristian Barnett)

Mandalay bean fritters - Mandalay pe kyaw

These kidney bean fritters are ridiculously easy to make and dangerously quick to disappear. Like the majority of our fried snacks, they’re vegan, but unlike most, these are just as good reheated in a dry frying pan or in the oven. They should be soft and fluffy inside and have the thinnest, crispest shell outside. Eat these bean fritters with any of the dipping sauces.

Makes 10–15 fritters

400g tin red kidney beans
1 red onion, diced
1 tablespoon self-raising flour
1 tablespoon rice flour
1 tablespoon glutinous rice flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon MSG or ½ tablespoon chicken or vegetable bouillon
groundnut oil or other neutral-tasting oil, for frying
Tamarind Dipping Sauce, to serve 

Drain most of the liquid from the tin of beans and then empty the beans and the residual sludge into a large bowl. Mash the beans with a fork till they are broken up.

Add the onion and the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix well.

Heat a 5cm depth of oil in a large saucepan or wok over a medium-high heat until you can feel waves of heat come off with the palm of your hand.

Using a tablespoon, scoop one spoonful after another of the bean mixture into the hot oil, until the surface of the pan is covered, but make sure the fritters do not touch. Let them fry for 2–4 minutes, until you can see them brown round the edges and then flip gently and fry for another 2–4 minutes. Remove the fritters with a slotted spoon and drain on plenty of kitchen paper. Serve with tamarind dipping sauce.

Cook’s note: Unlike most fritters these can be reheated easily in a dry frying pan, or in a moderate oven (180°C/160°C Fan/Gas Mark 4).

'Mandalay: Recipes and Tales from a Burmese Kitchen' by MiMi Aye. Published by Bloomsbury. Photography by Cristian Barnett