BM # 44
International ABC Cooking
Cooking with Alphabets : B
Category : Street Food
Burma
Burma, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, commonly shortened to Myanmar, is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia bordered by Laos, Thailand, China, Bangladesh, and India.
Sharing borders with India, China, Laos and Thailand, Burmese cuisine is inevitably influenced by the spices, seasonings, ingredients and cooking styles of its neighbors. Yet it is the way that these ingredients are combined which make Burmese dishes unique.
Most Myanmar people regard soup as an indispensable component of a meal, possibly because Myanmar people do not normally drink wine, or even a glass of water at meals . Good spicy soups not only facilitate the dining process but also stimulate the appetite of diners. Sometimes, when soup is not available at the meal and the dishes are too dry, a hot cup of green tea is served instead.
There are many different styles of soup. There are sweet broths that are clear and bland and contain meat or fish and certain vegetables. There are bitter soups that are also clear but peppery and spicy, usually to go with salads as a fast food combination. Some soups are rather sour and made so with the aid of tamarind pulp or tomato. They mostly contain vegetables to lessen the richness of a meal. Finally, there are bean soups of various kinds that are thick and tasty and usually splashed over rice as a dampener.
Coming to their street food, they have a variety of dishes.
Street food is varied, accessible and inexpensive. For today it is their Samusa Soup or Samusa Thouk as they call it.
Samousa Soup
1/2 cup pigeon pea / toor daal
1/2 cup black gram
2 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon jeera (cumin seeds)
3 dried red chilly
1 onion sliced
3 green chilly, sliced
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon coriander ground
2 teaspoons turmeric
1 teaspoon kashmiri chili powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
10-12 cups of vegetable stock or water or a combination
2 teaspoons tamarind paste
1/3 of a cabbage sliced
salt to taste
2 cups bean sprouts
1/2 cup green onions chopped
1/2 cup cilantro chopped
8 samosas
Soak the kala channa overnight.
Pressure cook the channa and toor dal in a pressure cooker till done.
Heat oil .
Add jeera and cook until toasty, then add the red chilies.
Add the onions and saute until browned.
Add the slit green chilies .
Meanwhile toast the peppercorns in a dry skillet, then in a spice grinder grind the peppercorns, coriander, turmeric, chili powder and garam masala. You can just grind the peppercorns by themselves, but I find that spices grind better when there is more volume.
Add all the powdered spices and cook for a minute.
Add the vegetable broth and/or water (I used a combination of broth and water), channa, toor dal, and the tamarind and cook over medium heat for at least 30 minutes.
Add the cabbage and salt and continue to cook until the cabbage is soft.
Add the bean sprouts and green onions.
Deep fry the samosas.
Cut the samosas in fourths and put a few pieces in each bowl.
Top with cilantro.
Originally they have large punjabi samosas, but since I did not want to cut them I used mini samosas.
Recipe Source – Here
Frankly speaking I am not a soup person so initially gave this a second thought, but after reading the recipe I was sure it would taste well, and anyway I am quite fond of samosas, so knew those could be the rescuers. The soup was more like our toor daal that we cook with rice, I could easily call it a blend of Sindhi daal and curry. The samosa acted as the dumpling and added an interesting element to the dish, and it was as good as a meal. The tangy tamarind made it awesome, the veggies made it whole some and finally the greens gave it a wonderful crunch.
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Samosa in a soup :)) now who wud have thought of that ???!! :))) my kiddo we love this.. Great one Vaishali… Bookmarking this!!
Dont torture me like, am just drooling here, its midnite and i cant take my eyes from ur soup bowl.
Samusa soup looks hearty and delicious! Nice styling on the photos and love that board/table you used as a background.
What an interesting concept! I have heard of samosa in chaat but in dal? Very new to me.
My husband who is a great fan of samosa was sitting by me when I was going thru this post and he was badly missing India. 🙂 The dish sounds so delicious and I am bookmarking this to try later.
omg..completely drooling here. Bookmarked ! I am gonna try this for sure 🙂 Thanks for sharing !
Wow Vaishali, now I am not a soup person either!..However if you are going to offer me with that Samosa, well I am all for it..very lovely clicks..everything looks amazing..
Samosa in soup , wow ! Interesting combo and with all those ingredients it looks delicious !
Awesome it is!!! love those samosa dunked dal!!!
Superb dish and nice write up. Am so tempted to have a bowl now. Soooo delicious !!!
Ohh you started street food, don't do this for me I didn't even for got your panipuris now youare tempting with this street food.. so so mouth watering.
Wow ! This is definitely something my whole family will gorge on!
OMG Vaishali, that is such a tempting treat. Your clicks are just amazing. Samosa in a soup sounds absolutely mouthwatering.
Omg di again a fantastic recipe selection 🙂 soup mein samosa really sounds very tempting 🙂 I wud love to finish the bowl now 🙂 You have tempted me badly !!!
just last night I was watching Anthony BOurdain's No Reservations and he was in Burma – this looks so good just like everything he ate on the show
So interesting! Samosa in soup! And I didn't know samosas were made in Burma and called by the same name too!! Reminds me of my Hubby's fav – samosa chat. Crushed Samosas in Chole topped with onions and green and khatti meethi chutney!
Vaishali..wonder where you find such delicious recipes..not sure whether you realise or not..your blog is probably having the best street food collections…you should dedicate a section for that …loved the pictures as well
Yum yum yum. Like I said this soup reminds me of the soup thta was served @ Tarun's wedding I think that was called Khow Suey ? (I wanted to make that for my B ) I can imagine the delicious tastes that this soup has.
Wow.. Samosa in a soup.. That is amazing & now I have reason to make both & enjoy.
Lovely post! Full of information about your flavourful recipes 🙂
Thanks very much for sharing!
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