Pè Kyaw, Crispy Split-Pea Crackers

Pè kyaw is a topping that got famous. On its own it is a modest thing — a thin, ragged disc of split peas barely held together by rice-flour batter, fried until it snaps — but no bowl of mohinga in the country is considered complete without one shattered over the top. Order mohinga anywhere from a delta ferry stop to a Yangon teahouse and the vendor's hand moves to the tin of pè kyaw without being asked. The soup is the argument; the cracker is the punctuation.

Fritter stands sold pè kyaw through the parliamentary years after independence, when tea shops multiplied and mohinga stalls became fixtures of every delta town, and the two foods have been inseparable since. It is also thrift cooking of a high order: a handful of dal and a cup of batter becomes a stack of crackers that keeps for a week in a tin — which is why grandmothers make them by the dozen and why the stall's stack never runs low.

The whole craft is in the ratio and the pour. The batter must be thin — closer to paint than to pancake — and the peas must crowd it, so each cracker fries into open lace rather than a solid cake. Pour it down the sloped side of the wok so it spreads flat, leave it alone until the first side sets, and drain it standing up. Then break it over soup, over noodle salad, or straight over your own resolve to save some for later.