Tag: Lunch

Food in Cambodia: All you need to know

Written by André Ruys on 08/09/2019. Posted in eat in Siem Reap, eat with locals, Experience Cambodia, food in Cambodia, Khmer food.

The first time I came to Cambodia was 2004. I was a tourist, had no clue about the country and the culture. The first thing I did after leaving the airport in Phnom Penh was to go straight downtown and look for a local restaurant. One of those with red or blue plastic chairs and metals tables. I ordered a noodle soup as my entree to food in Cambodia, and boy was it good.

Cambodian food is generally not well known around the world, and even within the country. Most travelers may have heard about Beef Lok Lak and Amok, but that’s pretty much it. What is less known: Khmer food goes back further in time than Thai and Lao food. Let’s get into our time capsule and travel back to the year 810. It’s the early years the reign of King Jayavarman II., the founder of the Khmer empire and god-king. He was also Hindu, and influence from India is still visible in Khmer food. The way of cooking, both for the common people and the royals, paved the path for the cuisines in the whole region.

Khmer food is rather sweet than hot

Often people wonder, why Khmer food is less spicy as in Thailand and Laos. The answer is simple: when Cambodian food was developed, the Khmer people did not know about chilies. They came way later from South-America (like the papaya). There is also reason to believe that the famous Thai dish Som Tham, a spicy papaya salad, is a copy of a Khmer version made from mango and rice field crabs.

Different regions, different taste

Food in Cambodia is as in many countries diversified by regions. There is no single dish to feed them all. People in Siem Reap fir example make a nice Prahok, the fish paste, and add red ants to it. Kuyteav is eaten on Phnom Penh with many more ingredients than in other places, and sometimes with the soup in the side. It‘s origin is Chinese, like many other dishes with noodles. You can eat Num Banh Chok sometimes with green curry and fish, sometimes with a red curry and in Kampot As a rice noodle salad with fried spring roll, like some Vietnamese dishes.

Travelers often mistake Samlor with a soup. Although it has the same appearance, locals eat Samlor always with rice. Everything else is called Sup, and influenced from China and Europe. The most typical Samlor is Samlor Machu, because it is full of all kind of flavors. There are not many dishes in the world which taste sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami at the same time. Most Samlors have the Kreung paste as a base, made from lemongrass an other ingredients. Then again, the recipes vary from family to family and village to village. There are vegetarian options and some with pork ribs (our host Yem Panha cooks it with you in Battambang), Khmer Krom uses fish and tomatoes, and Samlor Machu Siem Reap contains bamboo shoot and little freshwater shrimps.

Food in Cambodia: stir fried, fried or boiled

While Samlor takes a bit to be prepared, stir fried dishes are easy to make. They were introduced by Chinese business people from Hokkien Tsha, who moved to South-East-Asia. Those chines immigrants had as much (if not more) influence to the food and economy than Indian predecessors. What gives stir fry a Khmer flavor are the ingredients. Some food on Cambodia is made with young ginger, other uses tamarind, fresh crabs (like in Kampot and Kep) or beef cubes like in Beef Lok Lak. Cha Kuy Teav is popular in Cambodias south, with fried flat noodles and strong dark soy sauce.

Char Khnei (fried ginger) is quote popular with both locals and tourists, and best made with chicken meat. In

At many places where you eat breakfast you can find rice with barbecue pork and a scrambled egg on top. If you are brave, then try Phak Lov, braised and caramelized intestines. It is very popular as a side dish in Cambodian beer gardens. If you pass by main streets in the evening, you will most probably see a cow half on a big BBQ. It is grilled there since the morning and then cut on demand, either for take away or for having at the restaurant.

Beef Lok Lak is a salad

And then there are salads. The most ancient salad is the mango salad. Khmer use green shredded mango, not the ripe ones. The dressing contains lime, sugar fish sauce, chilies, Gallicanism shallots. Most important is the salty crab mixed with the salad right before serving. It goes well with sticky rice. The „pleah“ is a salad not for the faint hearted: Beef is mixed with prahok and herbs, some lime and pepper, usually served with rice on the side. And last but not least you will find Beef Lok Lak sometimes hidden in the salad section. The reason is that it is served with salad leaves, cucumber and tomatoes. The story goes that Vietnamese chefs invented it to please the french occupiers. They thought french people like salad and beef.

The heart of Khmer food: Prahok

If there is one thing that is really typical for Khmer food, than it’s prahok. The name stand for a fish paste made from small sweet water fishes called Trey Riel. When you make prahok at home, you just cut the fishes into pieces ad put then in a basket. They usually the kids crush them with their bare feet, the same way as it’s done with grapes in France. Once it has the consistency of a paste, it has to dry out in the sun for one day. Finally the paste gets a lot of salt and goes into big jars.

A good prahok may ferment for years, but most people just wait for a few weeks. As many fermented foods prahok was always used as a protein source in times when fish harvest was low. The name of the fish (Trey Riel) and the name of the Khmer currency are the same. It is said that the fish was once so valuable that it became kind of currency.

The queen of Khmer food: Amok

There is no restaurant in Cambodia for tourists that doesn’t have amok on the menu. Traditionally amok is a fish dish, but some place now offer it with pork or chicken as well. In particular cooking classes cheat a bit on the more expensive fish. It is similar to Thai steamed fish cakes. How is it made? It is not too difficult, but requires some time and tools. The basic recipe contains fish cubes, eggs, fish sauce and palm sugar. Then you mix it and season carefully with kroeung, a curry paste concoction of freshly pounded spices, including lemongrass, tumeric, galangal, kaffir lime zest, garlic, shallots and chillies.

Many versions available

While restaurants steam amok this days in professional steamers, the traditional way asks for a banana leaf. One ingredient responsible for the authentic taste is noni leaves. This plant grows usually in local gardens and in front of houses. The fruits later become quite stinky. For amok, you take only the young leaves and shred them. These days restaurants add beans and carrots to amok, mainly to stretch it and save money by replacing fish. There are attempts to use tofu or mushrooms for vegetarian option, but without much success. TV-Star and Chef Gordon Ramsey once visited Siem Reap and learned, that amok needs to steam for 40 minutes. While this is true for a family home, in restaurants you don’t want to let people wait for such a long times. Amok made in 20 minutes is a great and tasteful dish.

History of Khmer desserts

Khmer cuisine also has a vast variety of desserts, and one of the most famous is the layered cake, Num Chak. The family of one of our hosts make it every day to sell on the market. Sareth father is in charge. First he grinds rice to a fine powder. Then he shreds pandan leaves to small pieces. Then he mixes half of the rice powder with pandan leaf powder. The other half is on a seperate bowl. He adds coconut milk to both bowls and some palm sugar. Now the mixture has to boil for about 15 minutes. Then he carefully fills the white mixture first in a bowl floating on some cold water. This is the first layer. Once it cooled. He adds a layer of green mixture and so on. We have a video from the production site.

There is also some interesting history, as one of our facebook friends told us about the dessert:

Influence from Portugal

„Look up “Bebinca” in Gao, the former Portuguese Colony of India. It is likely the origin of Thai Kanom Chan, which get all the influence from the Portuguese traders and have became part of the Siamese royal court. Majority of Cambodian royalty during King Ang Doung regime, to King sisowath we’re educated in siam. There were records and mentioned about Siamese royal chef in khmer court at that time. Nyonya community in Malacca, Penang and Singapore also have “Kueh Lapis” which carried the influence from the European traders once the cultural community was formed.

Kanom Chan in Cambodia is only known during the latter centuries (early 20th century) and wasn’t embraced into the society, as only certain family knows how to do it. As the result, most Khanom Chan in Cambodia contain a name that aren’t translatable in khmer language as well as a product of a struggling recipes.

The point is “the resemblance of Thai and Khmer “Khanon Chan” has this connected histories through the latter centuries of Portuguese influences and the growing power of Siamese court over the neighboring country, it didn’t go back far as most people will claim.“

Most important tools to make Cambodian food

When I was watching my neighbors in Siem Reap preparing food I was surprised that they only need a hand full of tools in their kitchen. They cook food every day, and at Dine With The Locals we want to follow this local way of cooking. That’s why we are beyond the classic cooking class – authentic food and tools, real homes and families. This way, we don’t use much plastic and most waste is natural from left over food and vegetables.

So, what are the 5 basic tools you need when you preparing food in a Khmer home?

The mortar
A wooden board
A cleaver
A asian spoon
Gas stove

The mortar – in every home and cooking class

The mortar is something like the Asian food processor. It is environmental friendly, since it needs no electricity. I remember when I tried to cook Khmer food the first time in my home. To make the Khmer spice paste Krueng I added all ingredients in my blender and mixed them together. When I showed the paste to my neighbors, they were shaking their heads and laughing. Then the gave a me a wooden mortar and told me, to start again. and indeed, it makes a huge difference. Once you smash minced galangal, lemon gras, kaffir limes, turmeric and lemongrass together, you see the difference immediately. The fibers are longer and the paste has less liquid.

A traditional mortar is made of wood, and can contain around 1 liter. We buy them on the local market for 9 Dollar, and a good product lasts a few years. In more modern kitchens you find mortars made of stone, usually smaller than the wooden ones. The advantage is that you can crack more solid ingredients better, liker pepper and peanuts. The pestle is from the same material as the mortar, either wood or stone. You can find ceramic mortars as well, however they are more common in pharmacies or as decoration.

A wooden board

While western regulations require now plastic sheets in different colors when you cut vegetables, fish, meat or chicken. Cambodia has all-in-one. Every family owns a wooden board, usually like a disk with 30 cm diameter. It’s best to cut ginger and garlic with a cleaver, but also to slice fish open and make beef cubes for Beef Lok Lak. The wood is local wood, and a family buys the board either on a local market or from a passing-by vendor.

A cleaver

A good chef – like a barber – owns a selection of good knives. But they are expensive in Cambodia, and the cleaver is kind of a Swiss knife for the kitchen. You can cut carrots with it, but also smash garlic gloves. These days families purchase cleavers from Thailand or Vietnam. Cambodia doesn’t have a big steel industry and many homes rely on imported goods from neighboring countries.

An asian spoon

It’s also called a Chinese spoon and has a different shape compared to western spoons. Typical is a thick handle extending directly from a deep, flat bowl. You can shave fish meat when you make fish balls with it, but also use it to taste a Samlor or to add more sugar to a dish. Like most tools it is multi-purpose use.

Gas stove or charcoal burner

There are usually two ways of heating food in Cambodia: The old way is to use the charcoal burner or Asian clay oven, the modern way is to fire up a gas stove. The latter is getting more popular now, since it doesn’t emit those toxic gases the charcoal has. also, the gas bottles can be refilled easily. Nearly ever mom and pop shop has a exchange service for used gas bottles.

Summary: Khmer food is a new world to discover

Cambodian food is popular in some US-States due to a lot of refugees there. Florida is one state where you find a lot of Khmer restaurants. In Europe it is still rare. But of course the best way to try Khmer cuisine is to buy food in Cambodia from local restaurants. And of course, if you want to make it yourself, meet at the same time local families and have a great time together, check our host list at Dine With The Locals. It’s ever growing in Cambodia and hopefully soon in other countries.

Beyond the cooking class in Siem Reap

Written by André Ruys on 07/26/2019. Posted in eat in Siem Reap, Experience Cambodia, Khmer food.

When I was traveling through South East Asia 15 years ago, local food always was my main focus. Since many journeys were half leisure and half business, we mostly stayed in hotels. We had at least dinner there. but here and then we escaped and tried the local food next door. And sometimes we got invited to our guides or business partner‘s homes. We could experience what we call now beyond the cooking class.

Women selling honey at a local market in Siem Reap

Nothing is wrong with a cooking class as an activity in Siem Reap and other destinations in Cambodia. You usually go to the market, what for many tourists is an exciting experience itself. You indulge in exotics smells, watch Muslim women selling meat, jump aside when a motorbike drives between the stalls and may even help to catch a fish that tried to escape from the bucket.

With a tuk tuk full of groceries you head then back to the restaurant, hotel or a special place. Guest wash the food and prepare it for the actual cooking. Some hotels may even swap the food from the market with their own stock out of quality concerns. Then the cooking starts. You cut the greens, pound the paste and make nice decorations from a water melon and carrots.

Once the meal is done, guests sit together and the tour leader or guide gives further explanations about the food, the local life and when is the best time to grow and harvest rice. You learn a lot about a culture quite different from what you know in the west.

Why we want to go beyond the classic cooking class

At Dine With The Locals we go beyond the cooking class. We skip the market, because it saves time and many tourists have been to markets anyway. Another reason is that our hosts grow some of the food in their own backyard. Panha Yem in Battambang runs her own organic farm. You harvest some of the vegetables used in your meal with your own hands. Nue Thai in Siem Reap has a small garden, but shows you how the galangal plat looks like, let you pick a custard apple and make tea from jasmine flowers or lemongrass. If you like to eat eggs at Vannarith‘s home, you have to go to the chicken sheds behind the house and get some.

Cooking together is a great experience of local life in Cambodia — Prepare food with the family is more than a usual cooking class in Siem Reap.

As it is custom in Cambodia, every host offers three dishes. Those are most of the time the families favorite Cambodian food. Quite often families trade a recipe from generation to generation, with little variations. For example Samlor Chi. You will not get this in a restaurant, and its not mae in cooking classes. Samlor Chi is a soup with chili paste, garlic, ginger and coconut milk. Then you add fish, eggplant and pumpkin i. We invite guests to make the paste for themself, so they get a better understanding what tools are used and how a traditional Khmer family prepares their meals.

Holistic approach to food experience

Experience means for us a holistic experience. The house we hosts our guests is not just a nice decoration or background for pictures, but it’s home for our guests during their time. Tourists in Siem Reap may know the history of the temples but not the history of the food they make in a cooking class that is different. Just look at Beef Lok Lak, a dish famous with tourists – at yet not a real Khmer dish, but from Vietnam. And although we don’t serve crocodile meat, we do have a host with a crocodile farm (they just breed and sell eggs and babies).

Food experience is a whole experience, from preparing a meal to eating it and talking about it. Why not trying it?

How to cook homemade Khmer food

Written by André Ruys on 07/15/2019. Posted in eat in Siem Reap, Khmer food, local life.

Cooking is passion, and it doesn’t matter if you do this at home or as a professional chef. We focus on food in Cambodia and the traditional way of cooking. The recipes at our host families were handed down from generation to generation, from the grandparents to the parents to the children. Dishes at our hosts are also prepared the traditional way, often on open fire, using ingredients from the garden or the own farm. When you visit our host, you will learn how Khmer homemade food is prepared and cooked in a very authentic way. And of course we and the hosts are happy if you want to help cooking. So we take you today on a food tour in Cambodia and show you how to make delicious local food.

One of the main differences to western cooking are the kirchen and the tools. Many of our hosts cook outside the house, what is still common all around Asia. Even modern houses have the kitchen outside, nowadays behind under a tin roof. The reason: ventilation systems aren’t known here and you don’t want to have the smell of cooking in your house. Some of our hosts do have a kitchen room, but will always open all doors and windows then get fresh air and the feeling of openness.

While in houses and apartments the use of gas is more common, on the countryside most families still use wood or charcoal. Both is cheaper for them, and charcoal can be bought from passing by vendors with long trailers. Wood is mostly collected from the ground or from dead trees. When you eat with locals, it is also common to help each other and cook together.

How to make Tuk Meric

Our host Srey Moch makes a delicious Beef Lok Lak, one of the most famous meals in Cambodia, even if its not a traditional Khmer homemade food (it came from Vietnam, and you can read more here). What makes the difference is the sauce on the side: it is a mix of lemon, salt and pepper, called Tuk Meric. Some families like Srey Moch’s use a dash of fish sauce and sugar and some minced garlic and chili in it as well. The beef itself comes already with a sauce (made from oyster sauce, soy sauce and onions), but will be dipped in the side sauce as well. You can also try to just eat the rice with the lemon-pepper-salt-mix!

Homemade Khmer food 101: Pork balls

There are many ways to make a vegetable soup with pork balls, but our host Vannarith has a special recipe. Usually you would just like season minced pork and form it to small balls. But when we talk about homemade Khmer food, the pork balls aren’t just rolled. The pork will be minced and them smashed on a table of wood board, picked up and smashed again. The reason for this process is to break the proteins, what enhanced taste and texture. If you come a bit more early, Vannarith will show you how it’s done properly, and you can even try it out yourself. You will see that the shape is also different, they aren’t formed like perfect round balls, but a bit more flat.

Soup with papaya (Sngor Sup Lahong )

Papaya soup with pork rib is one of the homemade Khmer food

In Cambodian cuisine you see the use of fruits as vegetables quite often. The mango salad is made from green or sour mangos, so is the papaya salad. Our host Panha Yem in Battambang cooks Sngor Sup Lahong, and one important ingredient is green papaya (Khmer: lahong). You may only know papaya as a sweet orange fruit, but in most dishes Khmer homemade food is made with the, not ripe state. It will be cut into cubes and then cooked together with pork rips. The soup itself is clear and the meat and papaya giving it the distinctive taste. It is common that you eat the soup together with rice and other dishes. Most food comes either as it is cooked or together, but there is no concept of courses (only fruits will be served last.)

Want to try it? Just check out all of our hosts.

Book now your cooking class experience!

Garbage on the side of the street in Siem Reap

Plastic free food experience in Cambodia

Written by André Ruys on 07/10/2019. Posted in Environment, Experience Cambodia.

We are taking the environment we live in seriously. Cambodia has precious forests, waterfalls, costal areas and beautiful landscapes. This should be preserved. But we are also aware of the lack of infrastructure, in particular when it comes to garbage. While we cannot change all at once to a plastic free environment, we want at least to help reducing waste. One thing we do: We are supporting the Initiative Green Clean Cambodia.

Vegetables packed in plastic and styrofoam in a supermarket

And we actively encourage our hosts to be plastic free. It’s actually an easy task, since our guests will get a homemade meal in a local Cambodian house, where plastic is reduced to a minimum. We serve from steel or ceramic plates, water comes in cups and glasses, the food is brought from the local market or sometimes even from the own garden.

Our host Loy works for a garbage company

One of our hosts in Siem Reap, Loy, is actually a manager at the local Garbage collection company GAEA. Part of her duties is teaching local communities about garbage reduction, the plastic free concept and recycling. She is also active with many environmental groups in Siem Reap. So is Panha Yem in Battambang. She is has her own organic farm, but her passion for nature and an intact environment goes even further: She supports locals groups in avoiding the use of plastic and how recycling works.

Plastic free can also means reuse

When you see a water bottle at our hosts place, then it’s us usually used to server the drinking water from the tank, which is connected to the filtering system. This is how things are recycled. And if there are water bottles left, they will be collected and sold to the recycling companies and the collectors. This way we can help also those who make a living from the recycling business.

We are aware that once you buy at the market, plastic bags are still used. But this is less than shopping in a supermarket. When you buy from a stall selling vegetables, they are all packed in one back. And different from a supermarket vegetables, fruits and meats and fish are not wrapped in plastic and styrofoam. So buying at the local Is actually a really good way to reduce plastic and become as plastic free as possible. Also, we encourage our hosts to collect all non-organic garbage separately and bring it to the collection points, so the local Waste company can pick it up.

You can see it yourself when you visit on of our hosts and help them cooking. We are working on a market tour as well, where you can buy the ingredients together with the hosts, learn their names and how they are used in Khmer cuisine.

10 ways to reduce plastic and styrofoam while traveling

Re-use plastic bottles or get a bottle you can refill
Avoid styrofoam boxes at street food stalls
Look for street food places where you can sit
Re-use plastic bags, for example as rain cover for bags and shoes
Buy at local markets fresh fruits and vegetables
Give used plastic bottles to recycling places or collectors
Don’t use straws and asked for a simple glas instead
Avoid buying food thats wrapped in plastic
Use a re-useable bag for shopping
Use garbage bins in case you have to use some plastic bags or bottles.

Experience local life in Cambodia

Written by André Ruys on 06/11/2019. Posted in Experience Cambodia, Khmer food, local life.

One of the most recent trends in the travel industry are authentic experiences. While overtourism let travelers reconsider to go to the hotspots in a country, they may change to lesser known, but more individual destinations like experience local life in Cambodia when you visit families. The travelmarket report recently wrote: “More and more travelers are demanding an “authentic” travel experience, a trend that experts say plays into the hands of experienced, high-touch travel agents who can help consumers sift through the vast array of opportunities the world offers. According to a recent Expedia survey, 76% of baby boomers rate experiencing authentic local culture as “the most important” aspect of their decision making, while 62% of Generation X consumers rate local culture most important.”

If you are looking for authentic experiences, you may have to look very close. Nowadays many classic tour packages are just wrapped in new paper. Village tours and cooking classes, food tours and home stays are all a kind of authentic and locals experience. But the are also organized, and quite often there is not much time to interact with locals. Also, interpreters and tour guides may help to communicate, but can be a barrier as well. We are a cooking class with families.

Time needed to experience local life in Cambodia

At Dine With The Locals we do not provide guided tours. We let you have the full experience with the host family, without interference. Our hosts are not working in the tourism industry, their houses are private and not open to the public. Also, the tour itself is private: It’s just you, the people traveling with you and a Khmer family. If you are curious enough, you will get a much deeper understanding of the daily life, the dreams and challenges of locals in Cambodia. Dine With The Locals means that you cook with locals, eat with locals and experience local life in Cambodia.

Rice harvest at the organic farm in Battambang

You can stay one or two hours, and even longer if the hosts have time. We had guests staying for 4 hours with our host Vannak Khun in Phnom Penh and talking about modern art. We had even requests if guests can stay overnight at our host in Banteay Meanchey, because it was so beautiful there (we do not provide accommodation yet).

So much to learn from locals

One great example of local life is the use of the mortar. In Khmer its called tabal, and we use it as well in the official name of our company tabalr technologies Co. Ltd. It is one of the most common tools used in Khmer cuisine. In former times, it was the only way to blend spices and other ingredients. But even now, in the age of electricity, most Khmer will use the mortar instead of the blender. The latter is mostly used to make fruit shakes. When you make the Kroeung spice paste with your hands, crashing the lemongras and tumeric until it becomes a thick paste, you understand what local life is.