Khmer

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)

Reading: Beliefs about the Mrenh Gongveal: Chasing the Elves of the Khmer

11 August 2015 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

I’ve just had a chance to flip through this book. It’s a photo essay on the Khmer tradition of providing a home to beings (elves) believed to provide them protection, guidance and advice. Look around Phnom Penh and it is such a common sight on the streets outside of residences, that it barely registers in your peripheral vision. [Read more…] about Reading: Beliefs about the Mrenh Gongveal: Chasing the Elves of the Khmer

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!

Quick eats in Phnom Penh: Bánh hỏi for lunch

3 April 2015 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

This shop on busy Sihanouk Blvd has been serving fantastic bánh hỏi for years! They serve a set menu that includes sandwiches and meat skewers. It’s a picture menu, and easy to point to one of the two big platters of meats and vegetables. Before the food arrives, a small pan of water and slices of lemon is brought to the table for washing hands.

Bánh hỏi refers to the rice vermicelli noodle woven into a fine mesh, which looks like gauze. It’s paired with foods of different textures and richness – starchy green bananas, sweet pineapples, crunchy cucumbers, meats and fats – all to be wrapped into a fresh spring roll. These fillings are laid out on several platters.

One of these platters contains skewered pork meat sliced very thin and wrapped around a piece of fat. It’s accompanied by the pickled vegetables that’s served with many barbecued Khmer dishes (slivers of unripe mango or papaya, cucumber, carrot in vinegar, salt, sugar and chili).

Rice paper wrap is served dry and stacked on the plate; before rolling, a wrap is dipped in warm water to soften and make it pliable. It’s a bit tricky because once wet the wrap is fragile so it tears easily. But with a little practice it can be stretched expertly to roll an unwieldy amount of filling together. The dipping sauce, nuoc cham, is a delicate balance of spice, sweet, sour, and salty, and topped with roasted ground peanuts and chili.

Below is the process photographed step-by-step:

On Sihanouk Blvd the small “hang bai” is easily lost in the mix of salons, retailers and other eateries on the north side of the street between Monivong and St 63. It’s about 7 shops towards Monivong if starting on St 63 – look for the yellow awning with the address #83AEo St 274. Today they were sporting the famous (brightly colored) pajama apparel!

Where apsaras dance .. updated

9 February 2015 by Nathalie Abejero 2 Comments

The origins and symbolism of Khmer weddings, according to the Khmer Institute:

Khmer weddings enact Cambodia’s greatest legend. The first Khmer prince, Preah Thong, fell in love with the Naga Princess, Neang Neak, while exiled from his homeland. As a marriage gift to the couple, the father of the Naga Princess swallowed part of the ocean, and out of this was formed the land of Cambodia.

Khmer food: Svay bok Trai cha-aa

8 March 2014 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

(Smashed grilled fish) I’m always discovering new Khmer dishes I haven’t tried yet. My colleague brought some of this the other day for her lunch. The photo doesn’t capture it well, but it’s a very tasty dish (for those not turned off by pungency, that is)!

It’s made of fish (grilled river catfish was used here), smashed in a mortar and pestle with grated green mango and spices. I asked Sopheap to make it and watched. Into the mortar with the mango went chopped red and white onion, a little garlic, salt, peanuts, some fish sauce and herbs that they call chee (gee?), for which I don’t know the English names. (I’ll add to this post when I find out.)

Similar to it is the more famous green papaya/mango salad. This salad has river crab, often added raw then smashed into the other ingredients. But svay bok trai cha-aa uses fish. They lend a lot of pungency to the already multiple layers of flavor. It won’t go into the family’s recipe rotation very often, because the flavors are a bit strong for the kids right now. But it’s definitely a good lunch option! (I just have to make sure to stock Menthos in my desk!)