Burmese cuisine - popular food (Part 1)

Burmese cuisine is appreciated for the beauty of what it is: an Asian cuisine fused from Southeast Asian, Chinese and Indian influences. Myanmar people enjoy rice as their main food and it comprises about 75% of the diet.

Main dishes in a typical Myanmar meal can be classified as meat or fish, vegetables or salads, and some kind of soup. In the meat or fish category, dishes such as chicken, duck, pork, mutton, fish and prawns, and eggs cooked in water, oil and other spices.

But beef is usually not served. Vegetables are cut and cooked in various ways, usually with a small amount of oil and dried prawn to enhance the taste. Salads are mostly made of raw, cooked or preserved vegetables, or sometimes meat, fish or prawn, added with a number of ingredients to enrich the flavour. There are many popular food in Myanmar. Below are more interesting dishes for you to take:

Snacks Most Myanmar snacks are made of rice or glutinous rice, milk or grated shreds of coconut, and sugar or jaggery as sweeteners. Although there are a number of traditional snacks, the most popular Mohinga (or mohinka): The unofficial national dish of rice vermicelli in a fish-based broth of onions, garlic, ginger, and lemon grass – all topped with sliced banana blossom, boiled eggs and fritters (akyaw). This dish is eaten for breakfast.

The other famous item is Ohnnoh Khauk Swe or noodle served with rich coconut soup flavoured with chicken. Kyarsan Chet or vermicelli in spicy chicken soup is another favourite snack. 

Fried chapati with peas/potatoes
Fried chapati, crispy and blistered, with boiled peas/potatoes is  another  popular breakfast .

Soups

In Burma soups are considered an indispensable part of their traditional cuisine, served at almost every meals from breakfast, lunch, dinner and even during snack time. The Burmese concept of soups and salads, ingredients, condiments, cooking styles and variations are quite different from that of the Westerners.

Burmese Soup Culture:

Soup is served along with the main course and other side dishes and are treated as beverage during meals. They do not serve wine or even a glass of water during meals, as they believe that brothy soup will help swallow the solid food easily. Sometimes if the soup is thick, they serve green tea at meals.

Soup also acts as an appetizer, hence they start taking the soup before the main dish and prefers to continue taking in little portions between other dishes through the meal.

Interestingly soup can be served at the breakfast table, with curried rice at lunch and dinner and also during tea times or with fast food combination.