Pazun Ohn No Hin, Coconut Prawn Curry

Mawlamyine — Moulmein, when Kipling misspelled his pagoda — was the first capital of British Burma, a teak port where the Thanlwin river spreads into the Gulf of Mottama across some of the largest tidal flats on earth. Those tides move whole square miles of brown water twice a day, and they move prawns with it; the town has never lacked for them. What its Mon kitchens do with those prawns is the curry here: a full si pyan base of shallots, ngapi, and paprika, the prawn heads pressed in until the oil goes coral, and then — the southern signature — coconut milk, simmered until the cream breaks and the oil returns a second time, through it.

That doubled return is the whole argument of Mon curry-making. Upcountry, a curry is finished when the oil separates from the paste; on the coconut coast, that is merely the halfway mark. The habit is old — the Mon country was trading coconuts off this shore when Hanthawaddy was a kingdom, and Mon cooks will tell you the coconut curry pot is part of that inheritance. We note honestly that no one wrote the recipe down until colonial-era Moulmein, a town British memsahibs and Mon grandmothers described with equal enthusiasm; the era on this page records the paper, not the pot.

Two rules keep you honest. Fry the paste until the oil truly returns before any coconut goes in, and take the prawns out while the cream does its slow breaking. Everything else is patience and rice.