food

Bok l’hong (a photo recipe of papaya salad)

11 December 2020 by Nathalie Abejero 1 Comment

Khmer spicy green papaya salad. I miss so many things from Southeast Asia, and this is one of them. In Khmer it’s pronounced ɓok lhoŋ: បុកល្ហុង. You can order sôm tām, or ส้มตำ, in a Thai restaurant. In Laos it is tam maak hoong, or ຕໍາ ຫມາກ ຫຸ່ງ. And I didn’t realize they also have it in Vietnam, gỏi đu đủ (pronounced guy dodo). The premise is the same but each has its own distinct flavor.

Thankfully the ingredients are locally available. Here we visit a Khmer friend who just whips everything out of her pantry like it’s the simplest thing, and in 5 minutes she has some on a plate for me.

Besides the ingredients we used, you can add others: yardlong beans (cut in small pieces), grated carrots, crab meat, finely chopped lemongrass, palm sugar. If you add bean sprouts don’t smash it too much – add it at the end.

Garlic cloves, Thai chillies, sliced cherry tomatoes, baby eggplant, grated green papaya , sugar, prahok, fish sauce

You can get a bottle of prahok in any Thai grocery store (Chinese stores likely won’t have it)

Khmer cuisine: Koh saek chrook k’nao (Pork stew with jackfruit)

10 May 2015 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Koh saek chrook is usually a plain beef stew (of garlic, onions, soy sauce, fish sauce and small amounts of tubers) when our nanny Sopheap makes it for us. This variation below is with jackfruit, which lends a sweetness so that there’s no need to add sugar. (With growing affluence and its associated sweet tooth, sugar is increasingly added to Khmer dishes like this one.)

Tender shreds of meat are what’s left after the yellow fruit is taken out and the tougher rind and tendrils discarded. The seeds of jackfruit are edible when boiled. It has a hard shell that’s easily cracked and removed. They can be tossed into the dish as well. Sopheap leaves this shell on, but if I were to cook it myself I’d take them off.

First, garlic is stir fried in oil (Sopheap didn’t add onion this time). When it starts to brown, she added the pork. After about five minutes of medium heat, she tossed in the jackfruit. After about five minutes more she added some water, and let it stew. (Unfortunately there’s no recipe as she cooks by memory not units).

This dish needs serious food photography effort because of its drab color – the first image is the one I took in the kitchen with my camera phone, and the other is taken under natural light with a Canon 7D. It’s almost not that much better! :-( But the dish is really good (the kids love it), so don’t let the lack of professional photos put you off it!

Insect cuisine: Ongkrong saek koo (Beef stir fry with red tree ant larvae)

22 April 2015 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

The first time I had this dish was in Kampot, at a small stall by the side of a building away from the busy center of town. I loved it! Then one night I sat underneath a particularly bright light source and saw all the ants in my meal. After my initial shock, I managed to have a civil conversation with my Khmer colleagues about the food they had me eating. These ants lend a tangy taste to dishes, especially when paired with meats in a stir fry. I did end up finishing my meal that night, getting over it very quickly. All manner of insects make it onto the menu in Cambodia, so psychologically-speaking it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever eaten, and besides it was rather good.

There are several names for this ant — Fire ants, Red tree ants, Weaver ants. They’re large, red, have huge pincers and are unbelievably aggressive. They weave their nests into leaves up in the trees which become monstrous in size. If you find a line of them, carry out an experiment. Take a stick and wave it at a part of their regiment. The ones closest to the stick being waved at the group will rear up and attack. Reinforcements will be called via chemical alarm, and soon you’ll have a swarm of angry little buggers trying to get at you.

It and its larvae are a prized culinary ingredient for the delicate sour flavor it lends to the meat, but it isn’t easy to find in Phnom Penh restaurants. So we normally ask Khmer friends to make it for us. Unfortunately, it seems like the ants in Phnom Penh are also quite large. I have no problem eating this dish, but the bigger ants (up to 3cm!) aren’t pleasant visually to someone who hasn’t grown up with these dishes. Here it is stir-fried with ginger, lemongrass, garlic, shallots, cuts of morning glory and thinly sliced beef. As with other stir fried dishes, it isn’t complete without lots of chilies.

Phnom Penh in photos

22 April 2015 by Nathalie Abejero 5 Comments

The first experiences in this charming little Kingdom of Wonder are a full assault on the senses, despite regular travel outside comfort zones. Our photo archive is bursting with what was once so unique and interesting — market scenes, street sights, exotic fruits. But after many years of working and living here, these scenes reduce to mundane.

Thanks to the gang at the Multicultural Kid Blogs, however, I can filter through our images with fresh eyes. In this series, bloggers around the world give a tour of their neighborhood and town. What does a local playground look like in Astana, Kazakhstan, or how about a school in Izhevsk, Russia? It’s great for kids to see such differences in our daily lives around the world and yet, how much of it is so similar.

Notwithstanding the cultural ramifications of a tragic history, Cambodia is a fascinating destination — for its friendly people and curious embrace of Westerners. Here below are our stomping grounds around this adopted city of Phnom Penh.

Local school Our kids play here regularly as it’s nearby. It’s usually packed with Khmer and Vietnamese families and kids. Our favorite thing about it besides the people there is the elephant slide. Public schools across the country are built in a similar style — long buildings up to three storeys tall with large rooms that accommodate around 30 children. The grounds have two or three of these buildings, painted the same color yellow, with an open courtyard in the middle. Their school bell is an old ammunition shell. This particular facility is supported by Enfants d’Asie, which shelters orphans and children either on the grounds or on a daycare basis. Its ceilings are home to roosting bats, but despite that, the rooms are tidy and clean. This and other public schools tend to be open so the community can use the grounds for exercise and recreation when classes aren’t in session.

Public playground Over the past 10 years, a municipal beautification project has turned the wide boulevards and grounds in the country’s provincial capitals into colorful play spaces, complete with exercise stations and/or playground structures.

Local Transport It’s the start of the rainy season here, and rumok-motos (below) are a sturdy mode of transport on the muddy secondary and tertiary roads. It takes passengers for ~500Riel (US$0.125) along its routes to and from the markets.

Tuk tuks are common in the cities. There’s little elevation in the area surrounding Phnom Penh, so it’s relatively easy for motorbikes to haul passengers around in these. They get converted to mobile vendors (pizza, coffee, etc) for locally unique attractions.

Motorbikes are also popular. People can pick up moto-taxis on street corners or by flagging one down on the street. It’s a cheap set of wheels for a family starting out, and only recently is the government beginning to crack down on overloading them with passengers or cargo. (I think the most people I’ve seen on one was 8 — 5 adults and 3 small children!).

Markets They’re everywhere, and they have it all — produce, eggs, meats, seafood. Keep those eyes peeled for easy to spot animals from endangered species, mixed into the piles on offer.

Take a break for an iced coffee or small snack. This woman makes the tastiest iced coffee! — and for 2000riel (US$0.50)! At the end of the day, have it with a shot of Bailey’s. Ohhh heaven.

Check out those brilliant rambutans she’s selling; they are in season now. My son can eat several kilograms of this fruit in one sitting, which is great because it’s an antioxidant powerhouse that rivals pomegranates and acai. Here they are opened up. It is juicy when ripe, can be both mildly sweet and sour, with a bit of acidic aftertaste. A small piece of bark always gets stuck to the meat, but it doesn’t affect the taste.

Elsewhere around the city, produce vendors cluster in shaded areas. Haggling is a sport, but it’s only the start of your purchase; selecting the sweetest out of a pile of fruit that look similarly tasty is not a simple task. Fruit that are weighing their trees or bushes down are picked all at once and stored in dark cool corners of the house, wrapped in newspaper. They’re put on the table out front for sale as they ripen.

Street scenes We frequent the riverside, where our Khmer/Vietnamese friends own an English Pub. It is a tourist hub, and a draw for many young Khmers, for the bustle of activity. Need some Happy Pizza (weed topping)? Want to exercise? Have a drink? Chow on some local delicacies such as fried insects (tarantula is a favorite) or fertilized duck egg? This is the place to be. Head over to Phnom Penh at night for some night time scenes. Other iconic sights include coconut sellers and meal vendors.

Weddings Reception halls are a recent concept, and because the Chinese shop houses are not laid out for parties, these makeshift tents spill out to the street for weddings. Seeing these get assembled brings on a good groan from foreigners; the regular and frequent pop up nature of these congestion points can be aggravating (not to mention the music turned up past the capacity of the 16 speakers these tents come with!). Apart from that, the rituals of the traditional three day Khmer wedding is a study in this region’s culture and legends.

Rapid modernization Safety is a luxury for workers in an economy that’s eagerly modernizing. Check out this guy outside the fifth (fourth) floor window without contraptions to prevent injury from above or to avert falls.

This is the case for local builders. Phnom Penh now has several high-rises, the tallest of which is Vattanac Tower at 39 storeys — it is the one that looks like an Angry Bird in the skyline. They (thankfully) commission development firms abroad for these, and for the most part they do observe international safety standards.

Below are skyline views of the city. It is a small city, comparatively, but sprawling. I can’t quite capture the sheer number of construction around the city. Developers are eyeing the prime real estate of the riversides (this city sits on the confluence of two major rivers, the Mekong and the Tonle Sap).

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Check out at all the other great destinations we have been and will be discovering, on thepiripirilexicon.com!

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Khmer foods I love: Sa-om pong tia (acacia leaf duck egg omelet)

8 April 2015 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

I should’ve put a dollar bill behind the bunch to show scale; it is small and only about the length of a large adult hand (this photo is zoomed in to show the fronds of this fern-like herb). It’s common hereabouts, has a mildly bitter taste and a pungent sulfury aroma. I’ve seen it most commonly chopped off the stems and mixed into duck egg omelets. It’s one of my kids’ favorite fast foods. In English it’s called acacia leaf, and in Khmer it’s sa-om. It’s eaten with rice and some sweet chili sauce, or as part of an array of dishes that usually includes soups.

I wonder what else people use this herb in.

Stir fry pumpkin flower (Chaa lapeau)

4 April 2015 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Pumpkin flowers – it’s available in the markets, early in the mornings. In a stir fry dish it has a taste and crunch similar to morning glory. Love this dish!

In many articles I’ve seen online, people pop off various parts of the flower to trash as they process it for cooking. But the Khmers I’ve seen cook it just cut them up and toss it all into a pot.

Taste of Nepal has some great photos and a recipe. And here’s a short explainer on pumpkin flowers from Tyrant Farms:

No matter how you eat them, you’ll enjoy knowing that a single cup of pumpkin flowers contains:
643 IU Vitamin A
9 mg Vitamin C
57 mg Potassium
a host of other essential micronutrients to keep you healthy
Remember: only eat the male pumpkin flowers! Pumpkins are “monoecious,” meaning a single plant will produce both male and female flowers, allowing it to self-reproduce without another pumpkin plant. You only want to eat the male flowers—not the female flowers—to make sure your plant will grow pumpkins. Also, bees and other pollinators use the pollen from the male flowers to pollinate the female flowers, so you can either leave plenty of male flowers on the plant for them to do their work, or you can become a “pollinator” yourself by taking the harvested male flowers and rubbing their stamens against the female flower’s pistils (sorry if that sounds a bit X-rated) once you’ve harvested the flowers.
It’s easy to tell the male and female flowers apart once you’ve seen them both—the females have a bulbous base that will eventually become the pumpkin, whereas the male flowers have a small base. Like other squash, pumpkin plants always produce a good number of male flowers before they produce their first female flowers.
Once we harvest our male pumpkin flowers, we remove any of the green stem and either: 1) eat them right there in the garden, 2) add them to a salad, or 3) roll them in pancake batter and cook them in a skillet like a pancake (finished with maple syrup or berries). Pumpkin flowers have a sweet yet earthy flavor that we love.