Khmer cooking

I have had a variety of traditional Khmer dishes since arriving and most of them I have liked. There are a couple herbs I am not crazy about but some of the spices are wonderful. Fresh hot chili peppers are also widely used so if you don’t like spicy food you will need to choose wisely. There is a Khmer restaurant down the street that offers cooking classes daily which is the perfect way to learn how some of the most common dishes here are made.

The morning started with a trip to the local market to understand what ingredients we would be using. Our instructor guided us through various stalls and explained what each ingredient was. Even though this was interesting, the four of us were most intrigued by the fish and meat stalls and were busy snapping pictures while the vendors looked at us amused. This is totally different anything I'm used to at home and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of observing the daily routine in the markets.

On the menu was green mango salad to start, fish amok as our main and cha houy teuk for dessert. There is a ton of chopping and grinding with mortar and pestle which resulted in my arm feeling like it might fall off. I was especially proud of my banana leaf bowl which was made from 2 circular leaves and 2 tooth picks.

3 hours later we sat down as a group and enjoyed our creations. I can’t say I’ll attempt the amok at home with the amount of ingredients and work it involves but I may need to make my own version of the mango salad.

You will have to picture everything moving around.

My cooking buddy Kevin.

Filling my banana leaf bowl with the fish amok.

One of our instructors and our fish amok steaming.

Green mango salad. It is not my favourite dish but good on occasion. 

Fish amok with white rice. Very flavourful. Another tasty dish but not something I would want everyday. 

Cha houy teuk is a sweet jelly dessert made with agar agar, coconut milk, sugar and bananas. It tastes great but the slimy noodles are an acquired taste.