Friday, December 23, 2011

Khow Suey

Khow Suey is a Burmese dish made with lots of vegetables, noodles, split chickpeas and chicken. Now you might be feeling curious to know my affinity with Burmese dish. It so happened that my father was born and raised in Burma before they migrated to India. With them came some Burmese dishes into the family cuisines, one of them was often cooked at our home - Mohingar. Mohingar shares the fraternity with Khow Suey, the only thing telling them apart is that Mohingar is based on fishes while Khow Suey is on chicken.



My mother, raised in Siliguri, didn't know a crumb about Burmese delicacies until she got married and became a part of my father's family. She learned the dishes at her in law's place only. Her acquired knowledge passed on to the next generation i.e. us. While I cooked mohingar couple of times after marriage for my hubby who, considering it to be one of the tastiest soups ever tasted in his life, often comes with the plea to prepare it, cooking Khow Suey was a new challenge for me as I had never cooked it before. Keeping our Indian taste bud in mind, I have prepared the dish in an Indianised way adding the spices required for our regular cooking.


Let me assure you here that Khow Suey is tastier than mohingar and every effort of mine went into preparing it truly succeeded in terms of having a fulfilling dinner at night.




Ingredients:                                  Cooking time: 1 hour approx.

ü  500 gm boneless chicken (cut into small pieces)

ü  1 cup chana dal or split chickpeas (soaked overnight)

ü  1 medium sized carrot (chopped)

ü  1 small cauliflower (diced into small florets)

ü  1 cup peas

ü  2 cups of coconut milk (I used the canned coconut milk easily available in the market)

ü  2 medium sized onion (julienned)

ü  1 tbsp ginger paste

ü  1 tsbp of garlic paste

ü  1 tsp turmeric powder

ü  1 tsp cumin powder

ü  1 tsp coriander powder

ü  1 tsp red chilli powder

ü  1 tsp garam masala powder

ü  6-7 green chillies

ü  250 gm of thin noodles (serving 2)

ü  Boiled eggs (1 or 2 eggs per serving depending on your palate)

ü  Salt to taste

ü  Lemon juice (1 lemon per serving)

ü  1 tbsp of chilli oil (optional)

ü  White oil for cooking

Note: You can add vegetables according to your liking. In case of unavailability of noodles, you may substitute it with spaghetti.

Method:

1) Boil chana dal till tender enough to mash. Grind chana dal and green chillies together into a paste. Use 2 cups of water atleast while grinding, else chana dal paste might turn lumpy.

2) Heat oil in a wok. Fry the vegetables and keep them aside.

3) Into the same oil, add onions and fry till onions change color. Add ginger & garlic paste. Sauté.

4) Add chicken. Lower the flame to medium and stir the chicken pieces around to shallow fry.

5) Add the spices including cumin, coriander, red chilli, garam masala and turmeric powder. Stir in to mix properly.

6) Cook covered for 5 minutes. Now add the chana dal paste, coconut milk and salt.

7) Again cook covered on medium heat till chicken becomes tender. Add hot water (about 4 cups or so) and let the soup come to a boil. Toss the fried vegetables in. Check the seasoning before turning off the flame.

8) Meanwhile, boil noodles. Drain the water and keep noodles aside. (To prevent noodles from sticking to each other, drop 1 tsp of oil over the noodles and mix in.)

9) To prepare chilli oil, soak 4-5 dry red chillies in water for half an hour and grind them into paste. In a skillet, heat oil and add this paste. Sauté for few seconds and chilli oil is ready.

10) Serving is little tricky. In a serving bowl, add noodles, pour few ladles of Khow Suey soup on it along with chicken, arrange boiled eggs on top (cut the eggs lengthwise), squeeze lemon juice and drizzle chilli oil to add a finishing gesture.

11) Happy feasting.

2 comments:

  1. wow...loved the recipe ....will definitely try out sometime ...bookmarking it...happy holidays to u n ur family :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. first time here... fabulous recipe... looks delicious... bookmarking it...

    ReplyDelete