Sahpye

The rice-noodle dish of Burma's Shan and Kachin hills: vermicelli under poached beef and a sour, fiery sauce of minced meat, heaped with culantro, Vietnamese coriander, and chives

Origin: Shan State & the Kachin Hills, Myanmar

From the journey of Rice.

Sahpye belongs to the hill peoples of northern Burma. It is counted a Shan dish, its name coming from the Shan sarh phye, and it is eaten across Shan State and Kachin State, where it is sold in Kachin restaurants as a speciality of their own. Some accounts trace it further north still, to the Shan-Chinese and Kachin communities of Yunnan, and across that border the Dai of Xishuangbanna make a rice-noodle dish they call sapie, with the same sour and bitter dressing. The similarity of the names and of the dish makes it likely that these are one dish on both sides of the frontier, though which way it travelled the record does not say. What defines it is the sauce, which is sour and sharp and made without oil. In Shan State it is bitter as well, and the meat is piled generously on top; the Dai version on the Chinese side takes its bitterness from ox bile. In Kachin State the sauce is spicy and sour and carries minced pork or beef through it, and that is the version given here. Either way it is poured over a bowl of rice vermicelli with sliced meat and eaten with a heap of raw herbs and vegetables, cucumber, lettuce, and carrot, which cool it. The herbs are the Burmese hill kitchen in miniature: culantro, the saw-edged leaf that Burma's neighbours in Manipur and Yunnan both call Burmese coriander; phat phae, Vietnamese coriander; Asian chives; and pennywort. Burmese food writers note that Shan and Kachin cooking uses fresh herbs, sawtooth coriander amongst them, far more freely than the cooking of the Burmese plains.

Ingredients

Noodles

  • 300 g dried thin rice vermicelli

Meat

  • 400 g beef sirloin or brisket, in one piece
  • 3 slices of ginger
  • 1 tsp salt

Sauce

  • 200 g minced pork or beef
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 4 fresh red chillies, finely chopped
  • 1 tsp chilli flakes
  • 4 tbsp lime juice, or 3 tbsp tamarind water
  • 2 tbsp fish sauce
  • 1 tsp caster sugar
  • 150 ml water

Herbs

  • 20 g culantro leaves, sliced across
  • 1 handful Vietnamese coriander (phat phae) leaves
  • 1 small bunch Asian chives, cut into lengths
  • 1 handful pennywort leaves (optional)

Vegetables

  • 1 cucumber, cut into batons
  • 1 carrot, shredded
  • 4 lettuce leaves

Method

  1. Simmer the beef with the ginger and salt in water to cover for about 25 minutes, until just cooked. Cool it in its broth, then slice thinly.
  2. Soak or boil the vermicelli according to the packet, rinse under cold water, and drain well.
  3. For the sauce, put the minced meat, garlic, fresh chillies, chilli flakes, and water in a small pan and cook over a medium heat, breaking up the meat, for 6 to 8 minutes, until cooked through.
  4. Take off the heat and stir in the lime juice, fish sauce, and sugar. Taste: it should be sour and hot first, salty second.
  5. Divide the noodles between bowls, lay the sliced beef over them, and spoon over the sauce.
  6. Pile the culantro, Vietnamese coriander, chives, and pennywort on top or alongside, with the cucumber, carrot, and lettuce, and mix at the table.

Notes

The Shan version is bitter as well as sour, and the Dai sapie of Yunnan takes that bitterness from ox bile; this recipe gives the Kachin spicy-sour style, which needs nothing unusual. Culantro is sold as sawtooth coriander or ngò gai in South-East Asian shops. Vietnamese coriander is sold as rau răm.

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