Despite Australia's appetite for Asian food, Burmese cuisine remains a mystery to many. The Southeast Asian country of Myanmar (formerly Burma) shares influences with its neighbours, adopting the mildly spiced curries of Malaysian cuisine, textural salads of Thailand and aromatics of Indian food.
Burmese cuisine also heavily features rice. it's eaten plain as a street-side snack, rolled into noodles, tossed into salads, and even cooked into crepes. There is no shortage of rice on the menu at Sydney Burmese restaurant, . In fact, it's the key ingredient in owner Hsan Myint Aung's specialty, chicken danbauk.
A one-plate wonder of rice and chicken, Aung describes danbauk as the "Burmese adaption of an Indian biryani". Its spice level is mild, it's less oily and it's considered a Burmese staple.
Danbauk is the dish that Aung associates most with his younger years in the city of Yangon (Rangoon). It's been over 30 years since he left home and migrated to Sydney to reunite with his mother and sister, who had both moved prior.
"I'm very close with mum and we were always together, cooking and eating," the chef says. "Then when I came to Australia, I was always cooking at church and for the community."
Aung was proud to give his Australian friends a taste of Myanmar and to share snippets of Burmese cuisine at the first restaurant he opened with a friend in 1996, Eastern Sun. The menu was a mash-up of Asian cuisines, including Thai, Malaysian and Burmese. But it didn't last for long.
It took the following 10 years working in a bread factory for Aung to save enough money to start a second restaurant; this time only serving traditional Burmese food.
Hsan Myint Aung and his wife, Lyn Aung, at a charity fund event at Sun's Burmese Kitchen. Source: Sun's Burmese Kitchen
Chicken danbauk has been on the menu at Sun's Burmese Kitchen since it opened in 2012. Aung inherited the recipe from U Car Sin, a Burmese 'uncle' and danbauk chef from Yangon.
"Everybody knows about his restaurant and it's still there," he says. "One time I met [U Car Sin] at a friend's house in Bangkok and he just taught me," Aung says. "I'm lucky, that's why I got the recipe from him. That's why I always use his name."
I'm very close with mum and we were always together, cooking and eating.
Danbauk can be served with beef or goat, but Sun's Burmese Kitchen speciality is chicken. The meat is marinated for up to five hours in a curry blend that Aung grinds fresh daily. It's then slow-cooked with rice over a fire and served with fresh cucumber, pineapple and onion. For extra crunch, you can add balachong, a textural mix of fried onion, shrimp, garlic, and chilli. Then cleanse your palate with the light and sour rosella-spiced broth that is tradition for Sun's Burmese Kitchen to serve with every meal.
Other menu highlights include mohinga, a fish and rice noodle soup that Aung describes as "Burma's unofficial national dish," and lahpet thoke, an iconic Burmese salad of crispy mixed lentils and nuts, dried shrimp, tomatoes and pickled tea leaf, which he imports from Myanmar.
MYANMAR FOOD
About Myanmar food
Aung is proud to share the authentic tastes of Myanmar with his local community. He has customers visiting each week from a diverse range of ethnicities, including Indian, Southeast Asian, Burmese and Australian.
"Some people come and they don't even know where is Burma," he says.
This comes as no surprise to Aung considering that Burmese cuisine is relatively rare in Australia.
Years of waking up early for the markets and cooking late into the night have taken their toll and Aung says that he is ready to retire. With the help of his wife and son, he hopes to keep the doors of Sun's Burmese Kitchen open, or at least until Burmese food gets the attention it deserves.
Chicken danbauk
Serves 4
Ingredients
Masala spice mix
- 8 cardamom pods
- 4 cloves
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 4 tbsp cumin seeds
Marinade
- ½ tbsp salt
- 6 tbsp plain yoghurt
- 1 tsp paprika powder
- 2 tbsp ginger
- 9 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tbsp chilli powder
- 6 onions, thinly sliced and fried
- 2 cups onion oil
- 6 chicken pieces, skin off
Rice
- 8 cups basmati rice
- 3 tbsp cumin
- 3 cinnamon sticks
- 8 cardamom pods
- 1 tbsp salt
Danbauk
- 2 cups green peas
- 1 cup cashews
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 cup onion oil
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 pinch saffron threads
Method
- To make the masala spice mix, roast the cardamom pods, cloves, cinnamon and cumin seeds on a low heat until fragrant. Then grind to make a powder.
- Combine the salt, yoghurt, masala spice mix, paprika, ginger, garlic, chilli powder, fried onion and onion oil. Add the chicken and marinate for 4 to 5 hours.
- Soak the rice in water for 10 minutes. Boil the water and then rinse the rice. Add the rice to the boiling water with the cumin, cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods and 1 tbsp salt until the rice is half cooked. Drain the rice.
- Put the marinated chicken in a pot. Layer with the rice, green peas, cashew nuts, raisins, onion oil, bay leaves and saffron.
- Cook on low heat for approximately 45 minutes.
