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The Rangoon Sisters: Authentic Burmese home cooking
Love Thai food? Addicted to Chinese and Indian? Then it is time to discover the flavours of Burma.
The Rangoon Sisters is a celebration of the incredible food and flavours that are found throughout Myanmar, including over 80 evocative recipes that have been made easy and accessible for the modern home cook by supper club extraordinaires Emily and Amy Chung.
Including chapters such as Snacks, Salads, Curries, Rice, Noodles and Sweets, the simple recipes are perfect for a quick weekday family meal or a comforting slow cook on a weekend. And the food is ideal for sharing and pairing: rich bowls of curry are contrasted with vibrant salads and heaps of steaming rice.
Recipes include:
Mohinga (fish chowder)
Pumpkin curry
Pickled tealeaf salad
Stuffed aubergine curry
Butterbean stew
Coconut chicken noodles
Mango and lime cheesecake
With easy to follow instructions and no specialist equipment or expensive ingredients needed, The Rangoon Sisters is essential for anyone wanting to make delicious, simple, authentic Burmese food at home.
The Rangoon Sisters is a celebration of the incredible food and flavours that are found throughout Myanmar, including over 80 evocative recipes that have been made easy and accessible for the modern home cook by supper club extraordinaires Emily and Amy Chung.
Including chapters such as Snacks, Salads, Curries, Rice, Noodles and Sweets, the simple recipes are perfect for a quick weekday family meal or a comforting slow cook on a weekend. And the food is ideal for sharing and pairing: rich bowls of curry are contrasted with vibrant salads and heaps of steaming rice.
Recipes include:
Mohinga (fish chowder)
Pumpkin curry
Pickled tealeaf salad
Stuffed aubergine curry
Butterbean stew
Coconut chicken noodles
Mango and lime cheesecake
With easy to follow instructions and no specialist equipment or expensive ingredients needed, The Rangoon Sisters is essential for anyone wanting to make delicious, simple, authentic Burmese food at home.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2020
51 people are currently reading
104 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 4, 2025
My 2025 Cookbook Trials - logging these in Goodreads to keep track of my cooking adventures this year. My new year's resolution for 2025 was to try more recipes - at least one new one per month. To aid in this endeavour, I'm once again signing out cookbooks from the public library.
While my cookbooks from the library pile up - I thought I should also really take a look at the cookbooks that have been sitting on my shelf collecting dust; including this one gifted to me a few years ago by my best friend A. I am forever looking for Burmese restaurants wherever I go and unfortunately, am mostly unsuccessful in finding the familiar flavours of my grandmother's cooking. Burmese food is so relatively unknown when compared to other Southeast Asia cuisines, that whenever a Burmese restaurant does popup, the menu and flavours tend to skew towards Thai in order to appeal to the masses - completely changing or diluting the flavours and dishes that I love.
Currently in North America, the best way to taste Burmese food is still through homecooking, so I'm hoping this cookbook will teach me all the recipes that my grandmother did not get to pass on! The Chung sisters have a very similar background to my dad's family who were Chinese immigrants to Myanmar and ultimately left due to civil unrest. I've only been able to visit once back in early 2010s and it will always be one of the most memorable trips of my life. I will continue to hope that I can return one day when the political environment is more stable.
Within this cookbook, I've marked down so many familiar-looking recipes to try and plan to designate a full month in fall/winter to focus on them. Top priority being the stirfried spicy chicken livers, mohinga (simple method), spare rib & dal curry, egg curry and pork tamarind curry (so many curries!!!) I'm really, really hoping the flavours will be close to the memories of my grandmother's cooking.
While my cookbooks from the library pile up - I thought I should also really take a look at the cookbooks that have been sitting on my shelf collecting dust; including this one gifted to me a few years ago by my best friend A. I am forever looking for Burmese restaurants wherever I go and unfortunately, am mostly unsuccessful in finding the familiar flavours of my grandmother's cooking. Burmese food is so relatively unknown when compared to other Southeast Asia cuisines, that whenever a Burmese restaurant does popup, the menu and flavours tend to skew towards Thai in order to appeal to the masses - completely changing or diluting the flavours and dishes that I love.
Currently in North America, the best way to taste Burmese food is still through homecooking, so I'm hoping this cookbook will teach me all the recipes that my grandmother did not get to pass on! The Chung sisters have a very similar background to my dad's family who were Chinese immigrants to Myanmar and ultimately left due to civil unrest. I've only been able to visit once back in early 2010s and it will always be one of the most memorable trips of my life. I will continue to hope that I can return one day when the political environment is more stable.
Within this cookbook, I've marked down so many familiar-looking recipes to try and plan to designate a full month in fall/winter to focus on them. Top priority being the stirfried spicy chicken livers, mohinga (simple method), spare rib & dal curry, egg curry and pork tamarind curry (so many curries!!!) I'm really, really hoping the flavours will be close to the memories of my grandmother's cooking.
May 30, 2021
I love this cook book with all of my heart! The Rangoon Sisters are inspiring to the Burmese diaspora, for those on a journey rehome their taste buds and connect with cultural heritage. I gave a copy to my Mum and she was delighted to have an easy to follow Burmese cook book that gave her tips on how to create some of her favourite foods from Shan and Burma generally. She really does make the best Burmese food *chefs kiss*, just from having this book I believe it would encourage her to consider her dreams of home cooked Burmese food catering more seriously - we shall see!
The cook book is very easy to follow with personable heart warming anecdotes from Amy and Emily Chung. The food photography is really special too, I wouldn’t mind even having some of those pics on my walls at home, hahaha falooda especially! I had a big smile on my face as I read about their supper club idea, which is amazing. Locally where I live there are many Burmese migrants and refugees settled here with little Burmese cafe/restaurant options. I hope this cook book and its reception further encourages Burmese folks to establish permanent eateries for celebrating Burmese cuisine and recognising our intercultural histories.
Ps. Sometimes my white British descent boyf makes me the Burmese kfc recipe from scratch, call that reparations. Ha ha!
The cook book is very easy to follow with personable heart warming anecdotes from Amy and Emily Chung. The food photography is really special too, I wouldn’t mind even having some of those pics on my walls at home, hahaha falooda especially! I had a big smile on my face as I read about their supper club idea, which is amazing. Locally where I live there are many Burmese migrants and refugees settled here with little Burmese cafe/restaurant options. I hope this cook book and its reception further encourages Burmese folks to establish permanent eateries for celebrating Burmese cuisine and recognising our intercultural histories.
Ps. Sometimes my white British descent boyf makes me the Burmese kfc recipe from scratch, call that reparations. Ha ha!
August 28, 2020
This cookbook has it all! It's an introduction for me to Burmese food and presents it in such a beautiful way. The authors' personal story - they are of Burmese decent - makes it all the more meaningful. For foodies and adventurers alike!
June 8, 2021
Obviously I bought this book just for the Mohinga recipe, which I will re-read from time to time, convinced I'm finally going to try making it myself, then chickening out and just sticking to my favorite Burmese restaurant instead. And it's a fantastic book!
September 9, 2025
I knew nothing about Burmese cooking so it's an interesting add to my collection. The sisters are bright and enthusiastic. The ingredients mostly familiar. . Its not a huge book , so I'm glad I sourced this from oxfam . Only 3 stars as its quite meat heavy, so I have to put my adapt hat on.
October 4, 2022
This is a good cookbook. I have not read many Burmese cookbooks and this opens a wide door to that cuisine. i particularly liked that many recipes had possible substitutions for meat ingredients.
November 24, 2022
Sorry to say that there’s not one single recipe in this book that appeals. Back to the library it goes post haste!!
August 4, 2020
Beautiful book, lovely photos clear recipes and all ingredients available in supermarket. Have been to one of their supper clubs food is delicious
November 19, 2022
Burmese cooking is, as one would expect, a hybrid of Indian, Chinese and Thai cooking techniques. The recipes seem interesting though they are generally for larger groups of people.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews