This rice salad is served as a traditional Burmese dish. It is often served with a Burmese soup called Hinjo, a soup made with bottle gourd, making it a meal by itself. It is difficult to describe the taste of Burmese Rice Salad as it is a melange of flavours, combining the softness of the delicate rice noodles, egg noodles, and glass noodles; the sour of tamarind sauce; the crunchiness of the shredded cabbage; the pulpiness of the green papaya; the spiciness of the chillies; the smooth taste of the besan. Each ingredient plays an important part in this salad.
All about Burmese salads
Myanmar has a range of salads that are made with complementary and contrasting textures and flavours. The Htiman Let Thote is one among the most popular salads in Myanmar.
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 10- 15 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes
Cuisine: Burmese
Course: Salad
Diet: Non-vegetarian
Difficulty level: Moderate
Servings: 4
Ingredients
1. 2 cups rice
2. 1 grated green papaya
3. 1 thinly shredded cabbage
4. 1 packet egg noodles
5. 1 packet rice noodles
6. 1 packet glass noodles
7. 3 potatoes
8. A small bowl of deep fried shrimps/roasted and pounded fried shrimps
9. 1 tablespoon fish sauce
10. 1 sliced tomato in long pieces
11. 1 sliced onion
12. 1 chopped spring onion
13. Handful of coriander leaves chopped
14. 1 deep fried sliced onion
15. 1 deep fried sliced garlic
16. 1 teaspoon roasted besan
17. Tamarind juice (tamarind soaked in water and juice extracted)
18. 1 teaspoon lime juice
Salt to taste
For the dressing of garlic chilli oil: deep fry 1 clove of chopped garlic in groundnut oil. Let the oil cool a bit then add coarsely grounded red chillies
Method
1. Keep the grated green papaya in the fridge for a while
2. Boil the rice and all the different types of noodles
3. Mix all the ingredients together, check the taste. Add the garlic chilli oil dressing, add salt as per taste, mix well
4. Garnish with coarsely ground chilli powder, chopped coriander, chopped spring onion, and lime juice. Serve.
1. Fish sauce and dried and pounded deep fried shrimps: These are the most important ingredients as it gives the authentic flavour to the salad. The fish sauce in Myanmar is made with any kind of fish, but it is usually made with shrimps. The fish is put in bamboo poles, which are buried in the ground and left there to ferment. The liquid from the fish is extracted and the fish sauce is made.
2. Assortment of noodles: This adds the texture to the carbohydrate-rich salad
3. Green Papaya: This vegetable lends a unique taste to the salad. Green papaya is also good for health, aiding digestion and clearing toxins from the body.
4. The accompanying Hinjo soup is sipped during a meal to cleanse the palate. The soup is prepared in a broth of chicken, shrimp, bottle gourd, and other vegetables like lettuce and green onion.