Pellet Smoker Cooking: Burmese Noodle Bowl

Nov 10 2013

I can’t do all my cooking on my smoker and some good soup would taste good on a cold windy day.

All my cooking life I have loved to try new dishes from around the world. I am always searching recipes for some new flavors to try. I think this is the first time trying Burmese. I found the recipe at Food52 by nykavi and thought the ingredients would make a tasty soup. Living in a small town in the mid-west I cannot always find the right ingredients for Asian style food.

I could not find shrimp paste (belachan), so I had to substitute oyster sauce and only used ½ teaspoon but think a teaspoon would have worked well. The closest noodles I could find were Udon stir fry noodles. I think they are a wheat noodle instead of rice but I thought they were good in the soup.

I had to debone the chicken thighs but if you can find them already done it would save time assembling the soup. I think this is the first cook I have done where you make a paste from the onion and garlic base. Once you get that made the soup goes together pretty fast.

I had a fresh salad of baby spinach and kale with bean sprouts, water chestnuts, chopped hard boiled eggs, and choice of salad dressings. I had chunky blue cheese on mine. We also had some crusty bread and butter.

Our daughter in law ate with us; her and my wife thought the soup was good. I loved it; I had chopped eggs, a little lime juice, a sprinkling of chili powder, cilantro and some crispy fried shallots for garnishes. I am not a cilantro lover but with this soup it worked and for me the best was the crispy fried shallots.

I will be making this again; sure tasted great on a cold fall day. I think I would stick with the oyster sauce I used but would like to find some good rice noodles to use.

Link to Noodle Bowl Recipe

Ingredients, (oyster sauce not shown)