Dear LPG,

Well I did promise to share my Myanmarian experience although, I have to admit to totally forgetting my commitment to have a go at this recipe until we got much too close to this year’s very unusual version of the Christmas holiday. 

One of the biggest challenges when trying some of the more exotic recipes is finding some of the more unfamiliar ingredients and when committing to this recipe the word that most attracted me was the fact that it was described as Simple Nan gyi thoke (►►►); after all, by now anyone who has read even one of my previous attempts at delivering my self-imposed, LPG undertakings must have deduced, I am a truly simple cook.

In the version that I decided to try, my main challenge was to get hold of some ‘laksa bee hoon’ and ‘Ajinomoto’.   I did try a few local shops but that did not work, so I tried the substitution route which was interesting. 

As you can see it is a two part-dish and I have to say that the curry was really easy to make although, in my pre-Christmas hurry, I could have been a bit more careful when it came to the precise quantities of some of the spices.    When it came to frying the spices until fragrant, I ended up rendering my kitchen to a smell similar to that of an oriental take away for a few days.  I like to think that had any visitors been allowed, I would have come over as a really accomplished cook.   I also have to say that the initial hit of the ‘fragrance’ when I added the spices to the pan left me coughing more than a bit.

To keep things quick, I bought pre-diced chicken which could have been diced into smaller pieces than I chose.  I looked at the picture when making the actual ‘Nan gyi thoke’ part and deduced that there were some noodles involved so I threw a few Chinese egg noodles in and I hope that this month’s pictorial evidence of my endeavours did sort of look similar to the original.

The taste was very good, although I happen to like very spicy, peppery, hot food, especially in the winter. If you don’t, I suggest that you add less of the spices rather than the somewhat overgenerous approximations that I used.

I have now ordered the two aforementioned hard-to-get ingredients from eBay and I will be trying the whole thing again when they arrive. 

Looking forwards, February is on the way and the 16^th heralds the first of two Lithuanian celebrations.  As luck would have it, my family has developed a Lithuanian connection.  This might just make my version of one of their national dishes, Cepelinai, more successful than anything I have tried so far?

Well we can hope…

CB, Lewisham

CB has found a few variations on this Lithuanian dish in case you feel the need to have a go….

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