Be honest, how many cookbooks have you on your shelves that you have barely opened, let alone made more than one or two recipes from?
Having recently spent some time renovating my kitchen including putting up some new shelves to hold all my cookbooks – and there’s a lot of them – as well as a couple of folders of recipes I have collected over the years, I had a mini guilt attack about how little I use these books. One book in particular caught my eye that I used to regularly dip into for inspiration, particularly when it came to Chinese cooking. It’s a huge hard covered book with many chapters, each on a different Asian country’s cuisine. There’s a number of chapters that I have never tried a single recipe from so to start putting that right, last weekend I cooked a selection of dishes from Burma (or Myanmar as it is now known).
Burma’s cuisine is not nearly as well-known in the UK as that of many of its neighbours. You’ll find restaurants from China, Thailand and India in almost every town but hardly ever any from Burma. While I have read that their food is rather bland, I suspect the lack of Burmese restaurants here is more down to Burma being closed to the outside world for many years, rather than an indicator of the appeal of their gastronomy. And, being surrounded by countries producing such amazing cuisine, I find it hard to believe that Burmese food can be anything other than exciting. Having opened up to tourism just a few years ago, Burma is now on many a traveller’s wish list.
Saturday night’s Burmese meal was a great success but one dish, in particular, delighted our taste buds and it’s so simple and easy to prepare I felt duty-bound to share it with you.
Burmese coconut rice
For a subtler flavour and fewer calories use a tin of reduced fat coconut milk.
Ingredients
- 300 g long grain rice
- 400 ml thin coconut milk (tinned)
Instructions
- Rinse the rice very well (in a metal sieve under cold running water, I find works well).
- Pour the wet rice into a pan.
- Pour the coconut milk over the rice and stir well making sure none of the rice sticks to the bottom of the pan.
- Slowly bring to the boil while continually stirring.
- When boiling point is reached, reduce the heat and immediately cover the pan.
- Gently simmer for 20 minutes without removing the lid.
- Remove the lid, stir and leave to stand for a few minutes so that any remaining liquid may evaporate.
- Serve immediately while still steaming hot.
Notes
Have you been to Burma and what did you think of the food there? Have you ever tried cooking a traditional Burmese meal?
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Hi Kat
A lot of the Burmese food are simply delicious as it’s all quite flavoursome and varied. It’s influenced by Indian dishes, but toned down & Burmese-nised. Most dishes are eaten with simple white rice. Plenty of noodle dishes as well, but eaten in a rich soup base with it’s own unique flavours, eg, Burmese traditional Monhingka (fish based), Laksa (chicken & coconut based), etc .
Coconut rice is a specialty rice dish mostly eaten with Burmese styled chicken curry. Normally, the coconut rice is cooked with freshly milked coconut and some water is still added for absorption method of cooking (the lid needs to stay on in the last stage of the rice cooking, so the rice comes out soft & supple). The other important ingredient is brown onions. Smaller sized peeled and added whole from the beginning (or if big onions, then quartered), this gives the rice the sweetness once cooked. Enjoy.
Thanks Lae. That’s great. I’ll try this out for sure.
I think the best cooked rice is infused with coconut and pandan.
I loved Burma when I was there. Such a warm and friendly country with such a rotten administration. I remember sitting on those tiny stools in the market and eating some of the best soups and stews I have ever had. I never had a problem eating street food in Burma…always delicious.
Really hope I get there one day, Tim.
Never been to Burma, but the food does look tasty.
I’d love to visit Burma and try out it’s cuisine. I think at the moment there’s a basic itinerary that’s set up for tourists and it’s hard to travel off the beaten track there. Lovely photos and the rice dish with chilli sounds just my thing.
Do try it with or without the chilli – it was so good! I guess the whiole of Burma is pretty much off the beaten track at the moment but it won’t be for long, I’m afraid.
I wondered if the Indian version of rice cooked in coconut milk is the same or slightly different.. might have to google that one!
I’ve tasted “Athok” – the spiced rice noodle with veggies. Have also tasted the Indianised Version of Coconut milk rice. And loved both of them.