Northern-hill chicken curry with heavy ginger, lemongrass, and dried bamboo shoot. No coconut milk, lean and aromatic.
Jingpho (Kachin) highland dish from the Bhamo–Myitkyina belt, cooked traditionally over a wood-fire iron pot. Featured at the annual Manaw festival communal feast in Myitkyina.
Myitkyina's Friendship Restaurant serves it with sticky purple-rice and a side of dipping ngapi for 5,000 kyat — chef U Brang Aung uses Black Marans chicken from the surrounding hills.
Clear amber broth, ginger-forward bite, lemongrass-bay aromatic, dried bamboo soured and chewy. Chicken on the bone, hill-fowl lean and tooth-resistant. No richness — built on aromatic intensity.
Dried bamboo (mai-dong) must be soaked 12 hours then boiled with a baking-soda pinch to leach the tannin — un-treated it stays mouth-puckering. Ginger goes in twice: smashed at start, julienned at finish.
Variations
Bhamo lowland version adds tomato and is slightly thicker. Hpakant jade-mine camp version uses pork ribs instead of chicken — miners' cheaper-meat adaptation.
On the Palate
Where Kachin Chicken Curry sits in the Burmese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
4 steps · 20 min active · 50 min waiting
- 18 min
Sauté 4 sliced onions + 1 thumb ginger + 4 garlic cloves + lemongrass 8 min.
- 210 min
Add 1 kg chicken pieces + turmeric + fish sauce; brown 10 min.
- 350 min
Add 200 g dried bamboo shoot (rehydrated) + 500 ml water; simmer 50 min.
- 42 min
Adjust salt; serve with rice.
