Khmer Recipes: Cambodian Ceviche Salad

Ever since people found out that I am heading back, my amazing coworkers have been inviting me to join them for special foods and festivities. So far, I've made fish amok, eaten grilled eel, had delicious grilled beef skewers with papaya salad, and on Saturday morning, Rith invited me to her house to learn two new traditional Cambodian dishes.

Rith's husband is a police officer and she lives in a house behind the police station, basically in the field better known as the "old prison" just behind my house.I went over around 9am to find Rith and one of her housemates already busy washing veggies and roasting peanuts. As the morning wound on, 5 of Rith's neighbors and their children came over to help chop, pound, slice, fry, marinate, and otherwise contribute to our delicious lunch.

Fresh-roasted peanuts for the ceviche

Cambodian Ceviche Salad (Plear Threi)

For Cevice and Sauce
1 kilo firm white fish*
1/2 cup prahok (fermented fish paste)
1.5 cup lime juice
3 stalks lemongrass
4'' galangal root
1 kaffir lime
3 kaffir lime leaves
2 bulbs garlic
2 cups peanuts, crushed small
bird chilis
1 tbsp salt, or to taste
3 tbsp sugar, or to taste
2 tbsp cooking oil
fish sauce to taste
1/2 cup water
MSG**

Assortment of vegetables:
Cabbage and/or Lettuce
Thai parsley
Holy basil
Banana flower
Banana trunk
Cucumber
Bean sprouts

1) Wash and chop your vegetables. Cabbages or iceberg lettuce can be quartered. Other lettuce should be washed and the leaves separated. For the banana flower, use only the tender top half, not the stem. Cut the top half of the bud in half again, lengthwise, then slice thinly down the moon shape. Keep in a small bowl with lime juice and water to prevent browning. Cut the disk of the banana trunk in half across the diameter and slice similarly. Julienne the cucumber. Blanche bean sprouts to reduce the likelihood of disease. Put everything in the fridge or on ice to chill.

2) Process your raw ingredients: Remove the green leaves at the top of the 3 lemongrass stalks and chop the firm white bottom part. Process in a mortar and pestle or food processor until a uniform fluffy paste and set aside -- you should have about 1.5 cups. Chop the galangal root, process as the lemongrass and set aside -- about 1/2 cup, loosely packed. Remove the skin of the kaffir lime (some white rind is okay -- it will not be bitter) and do the same as with the galangal and lemongrass. Repeat the process with the lime leaves and 2 bulbs of garlic. Chop your prahok until a wet, gray paste. Keep each ingredient separate for now.

3) To make the sauce base, or "krooung"** add 2 tbsp of your reserved galangal, all the lime leaves and lime skin, half your garlic, and 1/4 cup of the lemongrass into your mortar and pestle. Mash together into a paste and set aside.

4) Slice fish thinly (about 2 mm thick). Chop slices into small pieces, no bigger than 2cm x 1cm. It may be easier if your fish is frozen first.

5) To the fish, add salt, sugar, and lime juice and stir well. Add the remaining galangal, lemongrass, garlic and stir. Add 1 cup peanuts and mix it up with your hands. Continue for about 5 minutes, until the fish looks completely opaque (cooked). Squeeze the fish out with your hands, and place in another bowl in the fridge. Reserve the juice.

6) Heat 2 tbsp oil in a medium pot over a high flame. When hot, add prahok and stir well. Fry for 3-4 minutes. The prahok will be very fragrant and should start to froth and bubble in the pot.

7) Turn the heat down to medium, add your "krooung" and stir. Fry for 5-7 minutes. The texture should be somewhat dry, so be careful of burning. Sprinkle in some fish sauce to taste (1-2 tsp should do).

8) Continue stirring and add in the reserved juice from the fish, reducing the heat to low. Add 1/2 cup water and 2 tbsp sugar. Mix until dissolved and then remove from the heat.

Serve sauce in individual small bowls. Individuals can add peanuts and chopped chilis to the sauce, as desired. Put fish and vegetables in the middle. Each person will take a lettuce or cabbage leaf, add veggies and some fish and dip in the sauce. The mixture can also be eaten over white rice.

The fish, all cooked in lime

* Cambodians use a small, whole fish called Threi Riel (money fish). They defin, descale, and degut the fish, smash it flat and then cut it in half with a cleaver. The fish was delicious, but I found the small bones poked at my gums.
** MSG is used liberally in Cambodian cooking, but I tend to leave it out in my recipes.
*** "Krooung" means "ingredients" and is used to describe any number of pastes used for bases in soups, curries, and for marinating meat. Krooung can be as simple as salt, sugar, garlic and MSG, but your typical ones include a combination of galangal, ginger, lemongrass, shallots, turmeric, garlic, and kaffir lime skin.

The tiny guys they used -- I might try a boneless fish, sliced thinly

Jess's Recipes: Sour Citrus Sorbet

Tiny packages of goodness

Growing up in our house on Valley View street, we had this amazing tangerine tree in our backyard. I used to sit in the tree on autumn afternoons picking the still greenish fruit, peeling off the skin, and meticulously removing all the white stringy stuff so I was left with nothing but the tiny jeweled segments.

These tangerines were small-ish, mostly seedless and flat on both ends (no protruding top like some tangelos). The skin was particularly loose and easy to peel with a relatively dull orange, almost greenish color even when ripe. The fruit itself was heavenly -- tart and sweet -- each slice popped open in your mouth with very little of that nasty thick fibrous segment "wall" that many tangerines tend to have.

I haven't found many tangerines like this since then, until last month they started popping up all around the markets in Kampong Cham. So far I've eaten 3 kilos myself and despite the fact that they're oh-so-delicious just as is, I thought maybe I should to use the little gems for something exciting...

The finished product -- nice and tart

Sour Citrus Sorbet (no ice cream machine necessary)

12 small tangerines (satsuma or robinsons are yummy)
6 Mexican/Asian limes (the small ones)
1 kaffir lime (bumpy skin, available in Asian food stores)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

food processor or blender

1) Zest the kaffir lime. Make sure the zest is small -- it will be going into your sorbet. Don't worry about getting down to the white part because kaffir limes are generally not too bitter.
2) Juice the remaining tangerines and limes, don't strain out the pulp. If you don't have a juicer, separate the seeds with a coarse strainer. You should end up with about 2 cups of juice. Put your juice in the refrigerator to chill.
3) Add sugar, water, and kaffir lime zest to a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until boiling, then reduce to a simmer for about 10 minutes, or until content has reduced by half, then turn off the heat
4) Add your syrup to the reserved juice and stir well. Pour into a shallow metal dish or ice cube tray and freeze for two hours or until the juice begins to freeze on the sides and top.
5) Take the mixture from the freezer and pulse it in your food processor or blender about ten times. The juice should be frothy and mostly opaque. Put it back in the pan and freeze another 5 hours, until pretty solid.
6) Take the mixture out and pulse it in the blender again. The sorbet should have a smooth, but soft texture and be able to hold its shape. Make into balls and freeze for another hour or so. Serve immediately with extra zest for garnish or put it in a container and cover the surface of the sorbet with plastic wrap to inhibit ice crystals. If your sorbet becomes icy after too long in the freezer, simply give it another whirl in the food processor before serving.

I plan to try different citrus combinations -- pumelo is the next contender, with chili-salt topping! It might also be yummy to add a tbsp or two of Alize, Cointreau or Grand Marnier to smooth out the texture and add a kick, but I haven't tried these myself. Just remember, adding alcohol means a slower freezing time, so if you try it, you may need to increase the suggested time in the freezer.

Kaffir lime for zesting!

Khmer Recipes: Bananas in Coco Milk

Somart brought this over for a feast the other day and gave me her recipe. I reduced the sugar, but you could add more -- it's really up to your personal preference.

I like to eat this hot with coconut sticky rice or chilled over shaved ice. Yum!

It's a little grey looking, but absolutely scrumptious

Banana & Tapioca Dessert (Jait K'tih)

1.5 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup water
8 mini dessert bananas sliced in half (Lakatan is delicious)
1/4 cup mini tapioca pearls
1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
pinch of salt
1/2 cup coconut cream*

Add coconut milk and water to a pot and heat until boiling. Add soaked tapioca pearls, bring back to a boil and then turn the heat down. Simmer approximately 10 minutes on low until the tapioca becomes soft.

Add sugar and a pinch of salt and stir until dissolved. Then add bananas. Bring the pot back to a simmer and cook 10 minutes more, or until bananas are soft and the mixture is a dull grey color.

Serve hot or cold with extra coconut cream drizzled on the top. This can also be eaten over sticky rice and/or with shaved ice for something different.

*If using a can of coconut milk, you can spoon off the top part of the milk which is usually the thicker, more opaque part and reserve this as the cream. If you're using fresh coconut, the cream comes out the first time you squeeze the coconut with a little bit of boiling water and the milk will come out on the subsequent squeezes when you've added more water.

Khmer Recipes: Sinang's Fish Amok

Sitting down to enjoy our lovely amok dinner

Last night, the girls and I got together to make fish amok. This is Sinang's special recipe, though I added some personal notes based on variations that I've seen elsewhere. Amok is your quintessential Cambodian food -- some call it the national dish. It varies across all sorts of dimensions -- from a thin and soupy to solid congealed sauce, from spicy to no heat, from big fish hunks to tiny processed chunks. Some recipes bring out the lemongrass, while others emphasize the kaffir lime taste. But some elements run similar: the dish is always steamed, often wrapped in a banana leaf; kaffir limes always make an appearance; and the sauce always has a curry base with your typical coconut milk and Khmer curry ingredients.

This recipe is for a nicely balanced amok, tending toward a lemongrass-y flavor. The final product is firm, not runny, but beautifully moist so that it separates nicely with your fork over hot white rice. The peanuts play a major role and change the texture from some other recipes. I'm personally ambivalent -- I'm not sure I like the texture mixed in, so I think I would try them as topping or garnish. On the other hand, though this recipe calls for kaffir lime at the end as topping, I personally like it mixed in.

Sinang's Fish Amok (Threi Amok)

Ingredients:
1 kilo river fish
5 cups tender star gooseberry leaves (phyllanthus acidus or sluk gontooik)
Banana leaves made into lidless boats, banana leaves for packets, or small ceramic bowls
5 stalks lemongrass
5 grams large dried chilis, or to taste
about 1 inch fresh galangal
about 1 inch fresh young turmeric
2 cloves garlic
2-3 shallots
zest of 1 kaffir lime
7-8 kaffir lime leaves
4 roots wild ginger (kaemplena galanga or k'chlee-ay)
1.5 tbs. salt
3 tbs. sugar, or to taste
1 tbs. dark shrimp paste (kapi)
3 eggs
2 cups coconut cream (thick coconut milk)
1.5 tsp curry powder
2 cups roasted, crushed peanuts (optional)
1 bunch cilantro (optional)

Special equipment:
mortar & pestle or food processor
pot for steaming

Feeds 6-8 people
Preparation time: 2 hours total, 15 min steaming

Process:
1) Soak dried chilis in a bowl of water to reconstitute.
2) Chop the bottom third of the lemongrass stems, stopping where the stems dry up into leaves. Also chop galangal, turmeric, garlic, shallots, skin of your lime, and about 1 inch wild ginger root very finely.
3) Process ingredients with a mortar and pestle or with your food processor until they make a smooth paste.
4) Chop your chilis finely and process the chilis in a paste. Mix chili paste with amok paste until the desired spiciness. Depending on your audience, you may want to make two batches -- one with chili, one without.
5) Chop your fish into small pieces. The exact size depends on your preference, but pieces should be no thicker than 0.5 cm and no bigger than 3 cm x 3 cm wide. This keeps the steaming time down and ensures that the sauce sets and the fish finishes at the same time.
6) In a large bowl, gently mix pieces of fish with amok paste and coconut cream until evenly coated
7) Continue to combine mixture, adding sugar and salt, shrimp paste, 3 eggs, curry powder, and finally the crushed peanuts. Peanuts can be omitted if desired, or added later for garnish.
8) Take banana leaf boats, bowls, or packets and line the bottom with 2-3 layers of star gooseberry leaves. Add amok mixture to fill the container. Repeat with all the amok mixture.
9) Thinly slice kaffir lime leaves and remaining wild ginger. Top each boat with a few slices of each for flavor. If desired, the leaves and ginger can be mixed in with the original mixture -- this is up to individual preference.
10) Steam packets in a large steamer for 10-15 minutes, or until done.

Garnish with sprigs of cilantro and serve with white rice

Somart and Rumdourl assembling the amok boats

The little amok boats, ready to be steamed

And in the steamer...

Rumdourl opening up the finished product while Elaine looks on...