Burmese Atho

Recipe: Egg Noodles With Bhejo, Tamarind And Peanut

A Burmese Atho Recipe isn't a single cooking step so much as five small components brought together at the very end, which is exactly what gives this noodle dish its reputation for layered flavour. Atho is found only in Burmese fast-food shops, with a base of egg noodles tossed with fried onion and garlic, roasted peanut and gram dal powder, coarsely crushed roasted red chillies, tamarind and lemon juice, and a crunchy element called bhejo. Once every component is ready, the actual assembly takes barely a few minutes. The fried onion and garlic are more than just a topping here, and the oil they're fried in becomes a core flavouring ingredient. Onions go into hot oil first and are golden fried, then strained out, and garlic goes into that same oil afterwards, fried on low heat specifically so it crisps without turning bitter. Both the fried alliums and the oil they leave behind get reserved and tossed through the noodles later, which is where much of atho's savoury flavour actually comes from. Bhejo is the component most people haven't made before, and it's worth the extra step. It's a type of crispy papad made from gram flour and rice flour, seasoned with turmeric, red chilli powder, and asafoetida, bound with a little of the reserved onion-garlic oil, and kneaded into a dough. Small portions are rolled and pricked all over with a fork and deep-fried until golden. Bhejo is popular as a snack on its own in Burmese cooking, but crushed and tossed into atho, it adds the one crunchy textural element in the dish.