Mohinga

Name: Mohinga
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Burmese
Ingredients: 700 g Catfish, whole or steaks; 600 g Rice vermicelli, fresh or dried; 4 Lemongrass stalks, bruised; 3 Onions, roughly chopped; 8 Garlic cloves; 40 g Fresh ginger, sliced; 4 tbsp Toasted rice, ground; 3 tbsp Chickpea flour; 200 g Banana stem, sliced thin; 4 tbsp Fish sauce; 1 tsp Turmeric powder; 1 tbsp Paprika or mild chilli powder; 120 ml Peanut or vegetable oil; 2.5 L Water; 6 Hard-boiled eggs, halved; 3 Limes, in wedges; 1 handful Coriander and spring onion, chopped

Myanmar's national dish and its breakfast — rice noodles under a thick catfish broth built on lemongrass, toasted rice and banana stem, finished with a boiled egg and a hard squeeze of lime.

Source

Recette de Burmese home kitchens · 🏺 Traditionnel · Cooking built on three things — a pot of oil-slicked onion and garlic base, fermented fish or shrimp for depth, and a table where everything arrives at once and is shared.

Myanmar · the national dish — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article confirms it as the national dish of Myanmar — a fish soup with rice noodles, typically eaten as breakfast. Quantities, the bone warning and the toasted-rice method are this book's own.

Background on Wikipedia ↗

Watch it being made · 3 videos

Aye Mar Czincila Cooking Therapy by Elva Gastronomy

⏱ 90 min🍽 6 portions🔥 480 kcal🇲🇲 Birmanie🌶️

Sans produits laitiers

Étapes

Simmer the catfish in 1 L of the water with two lemongrass stalks and half the ginger for 15 minutes, until it flakes.
Lift the fish out and keep the broth. Flake the flesh off the bones with your fingers and discard every bone.
💡 Do the bones by hand, not with a fork. Catfish has fine bones that a fork will miss and a mouthful will not.
Blend the onion, garlic and remaining ginger to a paste. Fry it in the oil over medium heat for 12 minutes, until it darkens and the oil separates.
💡 Wait for the oil to separate and float. That moment is the base of most Burmese cooking, and rushing it leaves a raw onion taste through the whole pot.
Stir in the turmeric and paprika, then the flaked fish. Fry 3 minutes.
Add the reserved broth and the rest of the water, the remaining lemongrass and the banana stem. Simmer 30 minutes.
Whisk the toasted rice and chickpea flour with a ladle of hot broth until smooth, then stir it back in. Simmer 15 minutes more, stirring so it doesn't catch.
Season with the fish sauce. Serve over noodles with an egg, coriander, spring onion and a lime wedge each.

💡 Astuces

In Myanmar this is breakfast, sold from a pot carried on a shoulder pole. Eating it at night is a foreigner's habit — nobody will stop you.
The broth thickens as it stands. Loosen it with hot water when you reheat, never with cold.
The lime is not a garnish. Mohinga is deliberately under-soured in the pot so each person cuts it at the table.