A Khmer Cooking Class

I like to cook.  I love to hostess.  I enjoy offering beautiful and tasty things from the comfort of my home. That said, I must confess that I really haven't cooked much of anything here in Cambodia.  Our kitchen is basic at best, a bit dark and of course it's hot here.

So I've been  living vicariously through Pinterest this past year.  

I do enjoy Khmer food.  Mr. Buny Chan is the cook at our campus.  A fabulous fellow really.  I love that he asks my opinion about his cooking, "Do you like it? Is the soup too sour?"  He's even given me a recipe for his pepper sauce.

Last month a few coworkers and I took a Khmer cooking class downtown.  We made four dishes.  It was fun, informative and everything we made turned out great.  I'd like to share our experience with you.

 First we went to a local market, Psaa Kandal, to buy our ingredients.  

It was the cleanest, nicest market I've seen so far.

These are pods from lotus flowers.

I would be nervous if I was still living at this point.

Fish on sticks

 or Cambodian fish sticks, as I like to call them

Our work space was on the top floor of a building so we had a nice view.

We made fried taro spring rolls for our first dish.

The taro had to be washed several times.

Rebecca rolls hers up.

Susan sends hers swimming in the wok to get toasty brown.

We made that dipping sauce too

Next we made chicken and banana flower salad.

This is the banana flower.

We used the dipping sauce from the taro rolls as the dressing.

It was light, fresh, completely delicious, not to mention beautiful.

Next on the menu was fish amok.  Amok is a traditional dish, almost like a curry with a coconut base.

We pulverized turmeric, kaffir lime, chilies, garlic, lemon grass in a mortar and pestle.

We used banana leaves and folded them into little bowls.  Once filled with our amok they went into a steamer.

Lastly we made mango and sticky rice for our last dish.

I learned a new way to slice mangoes.

A palm sugar caramel is drizzled around the outside and mixed with freshly grated coconut.

~The fabulous four of Cambodian cooking~