Kachin Rice Powder Soup with Chicken and Ginger

The cooks at Myit Sone, a Kachin restaurant in Rangoon, taught me this wonderful version of chicken-rice soup. Instead of starting with whole rice, as most chicken-rice soups do, the Kachin use toasted rice powder. The powder, a common ingredient in Kachin dishes, is a pantry staple you can easily make yourself. It has a seductive toasted-grain aroma, and it gives the soup a thickened texture that’s a real pleasure. The Karen have a similar porridge-like soup, khao beue, made of toas