Burmese boiled whole-yellow-pea breakfast dish (pe = bean, pyote/byouk = boiled). Dried yellow peas are soaked (often sprouted) and boiled soft, then served warm with a drizzle of oil, fried onion, chili and a little salt — eaten on its own, over sticky rice, or scooped up with naan flatbread. A cheap, protein-rich Bamar breakfast.
Dry-zone Bamar staple from the Sagaing-Mandalay plain where pigeon pea (pe-gyi) is rotation-cropped with sesame. Featured in U Hla's 1960s home-cooking columns in The Working People's Daily.
Yangon's Feel Restaurant on Pyi Road serves it as part of the htamin saba (rice spread) at 8,000 kyat per cover — refilled until you wave off.
Soft, tender boiled whole peas — lightly salty with a faint sweetness — dressed with a drizzle of oil, crisp fried onion and chili. Eaten on its own, ladled over sticky rice, or wrapped in a piece of naan.
Whole dried yellow peas are soaked overnight and usually left to sprout (~36 hours), which lets them cook through and soften more easily, then boiled or pressure-cooked with a pinch of salt, a little sugar and a few drops of oil until tender. The peas stay whole and dry — not blended into a broth or thickened into a stew.
Variations
Versatile: the boiled peas are most often served on a Burmese naan flatbread and folded into a wrap; they are also stirred into fried rice (htamin jaw), or the yellow peas are ground unsprouted into a chickpea-style batter for warm 'tofu nway'-type snacks.
On the Palate
Where Pe Pyote sits in the Burmese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
4 steps · 10 min active + 45 min waiting
- 130 min
Soak 300 g yellow split peas overnight; cook 30 min until tender.
Watch outCook the peas just until a pinch mashes soft but the pea still holds its shape whole — they should stay dry and separate, never break down into mush.
- 28 min
Sauté 2 chopped shallots in oil; add 2 chopped tomatoes; cook 8 min.
- 315 min
Stir in 2 tbsp ngapi shrimp paste; add cooked peas; simmer 15 min.
Watch outStir the shrimp paste in and let it cook a moment until its raw sharpness turns into a savory, rounded aroma — that's when it's blended in, not just added.
- 42 min
Serve with rice.
