What is khmer food

Traditionally, the production of prahok is a community affair. Surrounded with hundreds of pounds of tiny fish, men and women remove the heads, guts, and scales, while children use their feet to crush the bodies of the small fish. The fish can also be processed by a machine, rather than crushed underfoot, but machines fail to remove the bad fish and tend to not process all the fat, which is crucial to prahok flavor.

Once processed, the fish pulp is set out to dry in the sun for a day; then it is packed in plastic bags or jars to ferment over weeks or months to produce the signature pungent punch.

The result is a spicy mash-like paste of which a little goes a long way. The best quality prahok may be fermented for as long as three years. The history of the Khmer is written in their food. Many dishes and sauces are similar to those of their neighbors in Thailand. Stir-frying from the Chinese culture and curry dishes from India have all added to the taste of Cambodian cuisine throughout the centuries.

There are also traces of French cuisine from the time when Cambodia was part of French Indochina. A typical meal consists of at least three or four separate dishes. Each meal usually includes a sweet, sour, salty, and bitter sauce, to satisfy each taste bud. Rice is a staple eaten at most meals. When prahok is not used as either a paste or dipping sauce, it is most likely to be replaced with kapi, a fermented shrimp paste.

Chha trop dott: Grilled eggplant with pork. This simple dish is one of Cambodia's most accessible, and it's easy to make at home, too! Eggplant is grilled over an open flame or hot coals, then topped with minced pork fried in garlic and oyster sauce. Herbs are sprinkled over the top, sometimes Asian basil or spring onions or coriander. More upscale versions may be enriched with egg or served in the hollowed-out charred eggplant skin.

Although it has only a few ingredients, when it's done well it's heavenly. Chaa kdam meric kchai: Fried crab with green pepper. Local crab is a specialty of the Cambodian seaside town of Kep. Its lively crab market is known for fried crab prepared with green, locally grown Kampot pepper. Aromatic Cambodian pepper is famous among gourmands worldwide, and although it is available in its dried form internationally, you'll only be able to sample the distinctively flavored immature green peppercorns in Cambodia.

It's worth a visit to Kep for that alone, and for a related dish, chaa kdam kroeung, fried crab with curry sauce. Samlor m'chu kroeung sach ko: Lemongrass beef sour soup. This delicious soup is the perfect antidote to a hangover, a cold, or a rainy tropical day. It comes in two styles: plain or ktis, with coconut milk. The soup's base is prahok and a kroeung made of sliced lemongrass stalks, galangal, makrut lime, turmeric, and garlic.

When coconut milk is omitted, fresh curry leaves that have been brushed over hot coals are used. The creamy version pairs coconut milk with ripe tamarind, to impart tangy sourness, and holy basil or sawleaf coriander round off a simple but richly restorative soup.

Often water spinach or ambarella leaves are added, and sometimes even eggplant. Maam chao: Raw fermented fish. Maam is delicately flavored comparing to prahok, also a fermented fish dish in Cambodia. More adventurous eaters will enjoy maam chao, a dish made with a type of raw, fermented fish known as maam. Roasted rice, galangal, and sugar are added to freshwater fish and left to ferment for at least a month. Compared to prahok, maam is delicately flavored as far as fermented fish goes , its salty pungency balanced by the sweetness of the palm sugar.

Maam chao is most often served as a dip mixed with pineapple, alongside boiled pork and crunchy raw vegetables. Somlor proher: Fragrant vegetable soup. This aromatic vegetable soup is a Cambodian village staple and one of the country's most popular. The soup's base is a lemongrass paste made with fingerroot ginger, and it can be made with any number of vegetables, usually home grown or foraged.

Pumpkin, taro, and luffa gourd are common ingredients, and lemon basil is such an important part of the dish, that in Cambodia its name translates as "the herb for somlor proher. Ang dtray meuk: Grilled squid with Koh Kong sauce. In Cambodian seaside towns you'll find seafood sellers carrying small charcoal-burning ovens on their shoulders, cooking the squid as they walk along the shore. The squid are brushed with either lime juice or fish sauce and then barbecued on wooden skewers and served with a spicy chili sauce originally from the seaside province of Koh Kong, made from garlic, fresh chilies, fish sauce, lime juice and sugar.

Nhoam svay kchai: Green mango salad. Cambodia salads are often made with unripe fruit like Nhoam svay kchai, or green mango salad. The main ingredient in a Cambodian salad, or nhoam, may vary, be it ambarella, banana blossom, cucumber, or lotus root, but the chi, or herbs, remain the same. Traditionally, four herbs are used: Asian basil, mint, Cambodian mint, and fish-cheek herb, a heart-shaped leaf grown in Southeast Asia whose flavor is reminiscent of the sea.

Cambodian salads are often made with unripe fruit and usually contain smoked fish and small dried shrimp. Green mango salad is a classic whose flavors of sour fruit, salty smoked fish, and sweet palm sugar form a beautifully harmonious whole.

Aluek trei ngeat: Dried fish and watermelon. This unexpected combination of dried fish and fresh fruit perfectly encapsulates the delicious simplicity of Cambodian cuisine. Trei ngeat is the term for salt-cured fish that has been dried in the sun, one of the myriad ways Cambodians preserve food using the same techniques they've relied on for centuries.

In this dish, snakehead fish, abundant in the country's waterways, are salted and dried, then grilled over charcoal and served with thick chunks of sweet ripe watermelon, for a perfect sweet-and-umami contrast. Chaa angrong sach ko: Red tree ants with beef and holy basil.

You'll find all sorts of insects on the menu in Cambodia, but the dish most appealing to foreign palates is stir-fried red tree ants with beef and holy basil. The tree-dwelling red weaver ant, some barely visible and others almost an inch long, are stir-fried with ginger, lemongrass, garlic, shallots, and thinly sliced beef.

Lots of chilies complete the aromatic dish, without overpowering the delicate sour flavor that the ants impart to the beef. This meal is served with rice, and if you're lucky you'll also get a portion of ant larvae in your bowl. Kuy teav: Noodle soup. Kuy teav, noodle soup, is believed to be invented by Chinese traders in Cambodia. Every country in Southeast Asia has its own version of noodle soup, and kuy teav is Cambodia's, a flavorful pork-bone-and-squid broth most often served with pork or beef, fish balls and fried garlic.

The name derives from the Hoikken Chinese word for a type of rice noodle, and theories about the origins of kuy teav include the possibility that it was invented by Chinese traders in Cambodia or originated in Kampuchea Krom, an area in southern Vietnam that was once part of the Khmer Empire.

Whatever its roots, kuy teav is is one of the country's most popular breakfasts and afternoon snacks. Sngor ngam nov sach moan: Pickled lime soup with chicken.

Pickled limes give this chicken soup a unique flavor evocative of Moroccan cooking. Limes are packed in salt and left to dry in the sun, or boiled briefly and soaked in salt water for several weeks or months. The flavor is intensely citrusy and salty, but not bitter. A lime, salt and pepper sauce is also provided for dipping. Although this is a dish offered all over the country, there are regional variations that can impact taste and flavour. In this version of the dish, the rice is replaced by the addition of chips.

This is the National Breakfast Dish of Cambodia. The pork used in bai sach chrouk is marinated in coconut milk and garlic before being slowly grilled.

It is served with broken rice rice grains that have fractured during the milling process and fresh vegetables. Sometimes a small bowl of chicken broth will be served too. This Cambodian dish is a popular addition to the street food culture and is available everywhere in the morning. As well as being readily available on the street, it is also possible to find in more upmarket restaurants. We recommend pairing it with an iced coffee — delicious! Commonly sold in the seaside town of Kep , these pepper crabs are a local speciality.

The crabs are freshly caught before being sold at roadside restaurants. The pepper used is grown in the nearby town Kampot. Kampot pepper has been internationally recognised and as a result, has been awarded Protected Geographical Indication status. Not one for the faint of stomach, this salad commonly uses thin slices of raw beef. Much like Peruvian ceviche , it is marinated in lime juice, with garlic, onion, prahok Cambodian fish paste , sugar, green beans, beansprouts and fish sauce. It is served with chilli on top so it can be pretty spicy.

Although the beef is nearly always served raw in Cambodia, if you are recreating this dish at home, you can always lightly grill the steak if you prefer. Note that this list is of the best Cambodian dishes to try, not the most delicious ones! And it is impossible to talk about Cambodian food without addressing the rather large, monstrous spider in the room.

During the reign of the Khmer Rouge, the people of Cambodia were starving. It was believed that they had no choice but to start eating whatever they could get their hands on. This is how tarantula found its way onto the menu. Commonly deep-fried, tarantula is still a popular street food snack today. Although you can find it for sale in Phnom Penh, Skuon also known as Spiderville is the best place to try it, if you dare!

The sandwiches are stuffed with a variety of grilled meats, fresh vegetables and then garnished with Kampot pepper. Soup is readily eaten in Cambodia and this version is one of the most popular. The fish will be cooked in a lemongrass broth which has been seasoned with fried garlic and lime juice. Saw leaf coriander and Thai basil are also added to the mix, as well as shredded green mango and mushrooms. It has a refreshing taste.

Upon first glance, nothing seems unusual about this Cambodian dish. However, on closer inspection, you will notice varying sizes of red tree ants are mixed in with the beef strips. All of the ingredients are stir-fried together with garlic, lemongrass, ginger and shallots.

The ants bring a sour flavour to the beef and there is also lots of chillies which gives the dish a kick. The stir fry is served alongside rice which can come with extra ant larvae. Whilst it might not be a food that makes you drool initially, where else will you get the chance to try something like this?!

Before grilling, the squid is garnished with lime juice or fish sauce. It is served with a unique dipping sauce which is made from chillies, garlic, lime juice, sugar and fish sauce. You can never have enough fish sauce after all!

This classic dish can be made with either braised chicken or pork. The meat is slow-cooked in a caramelised broth which is a combo of fish sauce, pepper and caramelised palm sugar. Sometimes, bamboo shoots and tofu might be added and a hard-boiled egg is usually served on top. This popular dish would be cooked by mothers for their children when they wanted to reward them for doing a good job.