Recipe: Lahpet thoke (Burmese tea leaf salad)

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This week’s recipe comes from Rangoon Bistro in Portland, which just opened their annex bar Bone Sine to serve a range of cocktails and mocktails to sip with flavorful drinking foods. Old heads know that their tea leaf salad, lahpet thoke, is already a great drinking food — it’s crunchy, salty and bright, with just enough actual nutritional content to ward against a hangover.

What I didn’t know, however, is that the tea leaves for the salad come from Minto Island Growers, a certified organic farm in Salem. They’ve been growing tea for nearly 40 years, and are one of the only farm-scale tea growers in the United States. It makes sense that tea would thrive in Oregon — like rhododendrons and azaleas (Northwest natives), camellias thrive in our mild climate and acidic soils, blooming all winter and spring long.

In Myanmar (formerly Burma), lahpet thoke is a national dish, and if you want to try making it the old-fashioned way, there are a few steps between harvesting the tea and tossing the salad. Steam the young, tender tea leaves and buds for a few minutes before wringing out excess moisture, then pack them into baskets to ferment for a few weeks. When the pulp has changed from green to gold, it’s pressed to remove any remaining water, then the lahpet is ready to become this delicious salad. Serves 2

Note: if you can’t make it to the Minto Island farm stand, look for tea leaves (and the crunchy mix ingredients, sometimes sold premixed) at international and halal markets like Mingala, Best Fresh and Yadanar Halal Market, or purchase them online.

Ingredients

Veggie mix

1 ½ cups finely shredded green cabbage

½ cup finely shredded radicchio

2 tablespoons chopped tomato

2 tablespoons thinly sliced celery

3 tablespoons lahpet (fermented tea leaves)

Dressing

3 tablespoons garlic oil

2 tablespoons fish sauce

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Crunchy mix

2 tablespoons roasted peanuts

2 tablespoons fried fava beans

2 tablespoons fried chana dal

1 teaspoon sesame seeds

1 teaspoon fried garlic

½ teaspoon dried shrimp powder

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl, combine the ingredients in the veggie mix. In a small bowl or jar, combine the dressing ingredients. In another bowl, combine the crunchy mix ingredients (if you’re not using a premade mix), then assemble the salad.

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