Mohinga

Myanmar's breakfast: rice noodles in a catfish broth thickened with toasted rice and banana stem, eaten from a roadside stool before the day gets hot

Origin: Yangon & the Irrawaddy Delta

From the journey of Rice.

Mohinga is breakfast, and in Myanmar that is a category with real force: it is eaten standing or from a low stool at a roadside stall between six and nine in the morning, ladled from a vat that has been going since before dawn, and by mid-morning it is gone. It is the closest thing the country has to a national dish and it belongs to the whole of it, though the Irrawaddy delta claims it hardest. The broth is catfish cooked to collapse, and what gives it its particular body is not flour or coconut but two thickeners the delta had to hand. Toasted rice, ground to a powder, goes in and swells; and banana stem, the tender inner core of the trunk, is sliced fine and simmered until it disintegrates into fibres that hold the soup together. The result is a broth that is neither clear nor creamy but faintly grainy and unmistakable, and a mohinga made without them is thin in a way Burmese eaters spot immediately. The garnish table is the second half of the dish and the customer builds their own bowl. Split-pea fritters and crisp gourd fritters for crunch, chopped coriander and spring onion, a wedge of lime, chilli flakes, fish sauce, and a hard-boiled egg. A stall is judged as much on the fritters as on the broth, and the crunch is meant to survive the first few mouthfuls and then surrender. Rice is the whole foundation, and not only as the noodle. The Irrawaddy delta was the largest rice-exporting region in the world under British administration, its area under cultivation multiplying through the later nineteenth century after the opening of the Suez Canal; the country's identity as a rice economy dates from that period even though the crop is very much older. Mohinga uses rice three ways at once: as the noodle, as the toasted thickener, and often as the flour that binds the fritters.

Ingredients

Broth

  • 800 g catfish or any firm white fish, whole or in steaks
  • 2.5 litres water
  • 3 lemongrass stalks, bruised

Paste

  • 4 onions, roughly chopped
  • 8 garlic cloves
  • 4 cm fresh ginger
  • 1.5 tbsp ground turmeric
  • 1 tbsp paprika or mild chilli powder
  • 120 ml peanut or neutral oil

Thickeners

  • 60 g rice, toasted in a dry pan until deep brown and ground
  • 80 g chickpea flour (besan)
  • 300 g banana stem inner core, very finely sliced, or 1 tin banana blossom

Seasoning

  • 4 tbsp fish sauce, or to taste
  • 2 tsp salt, or to taste

To serve

  • 600 g thin round rice noodles, cooked
  • 6 hard-boiled eggs, halved
  • 6 split-pea or gourd fritters, broken up
  • 1 large bunch coriander and spring onion, chopped
  • 2 limes, in wedges
  • 2 tsp dried chilli flakes

Method

  1. Simmer the fish in the water with the bruised lemongrass and a teaspoon of turmeric for twenty minutes, until it falls apart.
  2. Lift the fish out, flake the flesh off the bones carefully, and set it aside. Strain the broth and keep it hot.
  3. Blitz the onion, garlic, and ginger to a paste and fry it in the oil over a medium heat for fifteen to twenty minutes, until it darkens and the oil separates.
  4. Add the remaining turmeric and the paprika and fry for one minute more.
  5. Stir the flaked fish into the paste and cook for five minutes so it takes up the seasoning.
  6. Toast the rice in a dry pan until it is deep brown and smells nutty, then grind it fine. This is a flavour as much as a thickener, so take it further than looks comfortable.
  7. Whisk the ground toasted rice and the chickpea flour into a slurry with a ladleful of cool broth, making sure there are no lumps.
  8. Combine the fish paste, the broth, and the slurry in a large pot and bring to a simmer, stirring as it thickens.
  9. Add the sliced banana stem and simmer for thirty to forty minutes, stirring occasionally, until the fibres have softened and the soup has the faintly grainy body it should have.
  10. Season with fish sauce and salt. It should taste savoury and rounded rather than sharp; the lime comes later.
  11. Put a nest of cooked rice noodles in each bowl and ladle the hot soup over.
  12. Set out the eggs, broken fritters, herbs, lime, and chilli flakes on the table and let everyone finish their own bowl.

Notes

The toasted rice and chickpea flour together give mohinga its texture, and neither can be left out: toast the rice until it is genuinely dark, because a pale toast gives thickening without flavour. Banana stem is sold fresh by Burmese and Southeast Asian grocers and tinned banana blossom is the usual substitute; at a pinch, very finely sliced tender celery heart approximates the texture if not the taste. The broth should be thick enough to coat a spoon but still pourable. The garnishes are not optional decoration but the second half of the dish, and the fritters in particular are what people judge a stall on. Everything can be made a day ahead and the soup is better for it.

The Gastrographer

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