Sour leaf curry (Chin baung ywet)

To my ear, pronounced: chi mao yawet

For my first post of a Burmese recipe, I thought I would try to make something whose main ingredient would take me all week to find! This dish is  'chin, ngan,sut’ or sour, salty and spicy- a favorite combination of Burmese people. I've tried to recreate Sour Leaf curry in the past by subbing spinach + something sour- lemon/tamarind, but I was determined to hunt down the real thing.
Armed with my phone picture of sour leaves (aka: roselle leaves), I set out on a Sunday morning on a tour of all the Asian markets in Rochester, NY. After no luck at the first two stores, I made my way over to Ocean Garden.  I asked the guy behind the counter if they had any roselle leaves and quickly pulled out my picture.  He said "Oh, sour leaves! You know sour leaves?!"  He seemed very enthusiastic and went to hunt for them in the back.  Unfortunately, they were out, but there would be a shipment coming in Thursday.

  I set out early Thursday morning, and there they were! Yay! (below right) When my husband and I were in Burma visiting his family in 2007, we loved sour leaf curry and made sure to order it a second time before leaving.  It was so exciting to find an ingredient that I thought was unavailable in the U.S.

Here's a picture of the leaves.

Recipe (adapted from hsa ba)

a large bunch roselle/sour leaves
1/2 c. peanut oil
1 large onion
3 garlic cloves
3 whole dried chillies, soaked in hot water
or chilli flakes
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2c. canned ,sliced bamboo shoots
fish sauce to season

as much cooked white rice as you like to eat

optional

a few green thai chillies
handful of dried shrimp


 Wash and dry sour leaves, then chop into large pieces (remove those pretty, red stems).

Pound the onions, garlic and dried chillies (after soaking them in hot water for about 5 min) into a coarse paste in a pestle and mortar or chop them, like I did, in my mini ninja chopper until very fine.


 

Heat peanut oil in a saucepan.  Add the onion mixture and cook over medium to medium-high heat, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes.You want to caramelize (brown) the onions, not blacken them.

In the picture below, onions have just been added to pan.

When onion mixture is soft and caramelized, add the turmeric and stir for a minute. If you’re using green chillies and dried shrimp, add them now. I asked my husband's opinion on this and he said "We love dried shrimps!," and proceeded to throw in my entire little bag (about 1/4 c.-1/3c.) of dried shrimp. I added 3 of the green thai chiles.  He wanted to add more, but settled for taking bites of fresh chiles while eating his meal.

Here is my caramelized onion mixture after adding shrimps and chiles.

 

Add the sour leaves and stir until the leaves have wilted (med to med-low heat). Mix in the bamboo shoots (I ended up adding the whole can, because what was I going to do with leftover bamboo shoots?) Cook until thoroughly heated and leaves are dark green.

Season with fish sauce and taste. Again, I was pretty generous with the fish sauce, because I know my husband loves it.  It adds a salty, rich depth to the flavor.  This is eaten as a side dish in Burma on a big pile of white rice, which tempers the intensity.

There should be a good balance of sourness, salt and spiciness.

Now, for the taste test. My husband took a bite and said, "MMM...it tastes just like I'm in a Burmese home.  I can't tell the difference."  Yay! Success!
We ate this as a side dish for 2 nights- the first night we fried some eggs for the protein, the second night we ate it with shrimp (which we both preferred).