Desserts

3 recipes

Mont Let Saung

A Burmese cold dessert built in a bowl from three components made separately and combined at the table. You boil sago pearls to glassy translucence and chill them. Coconut milk warms gently with pandan and a pinch of salt to thicken slightly. Palm sugar melts with water into a thin dark syrup. The assembly happens in the bowl: a heap of sago first, cold coconut milk poured over, palm syrup drizzled last in a dark ribbon, crushed ice piled on top. The drama is in the contrast of colour and texture: pale ivory coconut, jet-dark syrup, glassy pearls, ice. Eaten on a hot Yangon afternoon with a long spoon, the syrup pooling at the bottom for the last sweet sip.

35 minutes Serves4

Nga Pyaw Kyaw

The Burmese banana fritter that turns up at street stalls across Yangon and Mandalay, a sticky-sweet snack at any hour of the day. The trick is a thin, crisp batter rather than a thick doughy coat. You whisk rice flour and a small spoon of plain flour for the crackle, a pinch of turmeric for the gold, and soda water to keep the batter light. The bananas must be properly ripe (spotted skins, almost too soft to slice cleanly), and the oil steady at 175°C. Any cooler and the batter sponges up oil and the fritter goes soggy. Three minutes gives you a glassy golden shell around tender fruit. A sprinkle of toasted sesame at the end is the traditional finish; a scoop of coconut ice cream alongside is the modern flourish.

25 minutes Serves4

Shwe Yin Aye

The shaved-ice dessert of Burmese teashops, the cold sweet you order on a hot afternoon when the temperature touches 35°C. You make four textures separately and chill them: a firm green agar jelly cut into small cubes, cooked sago pearls, lightly toasted white bread cut into one-centimetre dice, and a cool sweetened coconut milk. A dark palm sugar syrup ties everything together at the bowl. The bread is the unexpected element: toasted just enough to hold its shape, it soaks up the coconut milk like a sponge and turns the bowl into something halfway between dessert and breakfast. Crushed ice piled on top is non-negotiable. Eat fast before the ice melts and floods everything.

2 hours 45 minutes Serves4-6