JewFish

Who knew?

Tomorrow is Aung San Suu Kyi's 65th birthday and in order to celebrate and raise awareness about the situation in Myanmar (nee Burma) we're having some people over and I thought it only fitting to make a Burmese food item. In my search I found a recipe for Nga Soke Lone Hin - fish balls in a tomato sauce - sounded like a good way to start the night, the first ingredient is "Jew fish" or Cod if you can't find any.

Above is a picture of Jewfish. I'd never heard of it before and in this instance Wikipedia isn't so helpful all it says is:

Jewfish is the informal name of some species of fish, including:

• Glaucosoma hebraicum, the West Australian Dhufish
• Epinephelus itajara, the Goliath grouper

In the end I've decided to make a sweet pea curry, with garlic scapes and mint. The recipe for Nga Soke Lone Hin calls for white bread, chili powder and paprika which doesn't sound so Burmese to me. Burmese food is greatly influenced by both India (which along with Bangladesh it shares a boarder with) and China (who supports it's evil military dictatorship) and also shares a boarder with. When I went to Burma my impression of the food was that it was vaguely Indian tasting, but still I've never come across an Indian curry recipe with paprika or Chili powder (which I think of as Mexican). So no fish balls for us.

In need of some Burmese Food inspiration today I walked up East 7th street in order check out the menu at Mingala which is the only Burmese restaurant I am aware of only to find it has, after many years, closed. It seems there is one on the Upper East Side as well, let's hope it's still open!