Basics - The Rough Guide to Cambodia - page 25

together by hawkers (usually in the provinces). The
woody outer layer of the bamboo is removed after
cooking, leaving a thin shell that you peel down to
get at the contents. Seasonally available are chook ,
the cone-shaped, green seeds of the lotus flower,
sold in bundles of three or five heads; to eat, pop
the seeds out from the green rubbery pod, peel off
their outer skins and consume the insides, which
taste a bit like garden peas.

with a lukewarm curry sauce over the top. Yellow
egg noodles - mee - made from wheat flour are
used in soups and stir-fries. Freshly made mee -
called mee kilo because it's sold by weight - are
available in the major towns, though elsewhere
people make do with instant noodles imported in
packets from Thailand and Vietnam. Loat chat , a
hollow noodle similar to macaroni, is fried up by
hawkers using hand-carts equipped with charcoal
burners.

Accompaniments
No Cambodian meal is complete without a
variety of accompaniments. One of the most
prized of these is prohok , a salted, fermented fish
paste that looks like a pinkish pâté and has an
incredibly strong anchovy-like taste. A dollop is
served on a plate with raw vegetables, gee (see
p.31) and edible flowers; it's eaten either by
adding a tiny amount to the accompanying
vegetables or by taking a morsel with a spoonful
of rice. Prohok isn't usually found on the menus of
classy restaurants but is always available at market
stalls and in Cambodian homes.
Though it's less pungent than prohok , fish sauce
is still pretty smelly. Used as a dip with every type of
food, it's made from both salt- and freshwater fish,
which are layered with salt in large vats; as the fish
ferments the juice is extracted from the bottom and
bottled.
Other accompaniments include dips of chilli
sauce and soy sauce - to which you can add
chopped chillies and garlic - which are either left
in pots on the table or served in individual
saucers.

Meat
Meat is comparatively expensive and is invariably
cut into small pieces and mixed with plenty of
vegetables. Pork is commonly available, attested to
by the number of pigs wandering around even the
smallest village, but beef is more di cult to obtain
as cows are prized as work animals and not neces-
sarily killed for food. The best beef is available in
large towns; elsewhere it's often tough and chewy
(in Western restaurants it is generally imported).
Not so much a soup as a meal in itself , sop
chhnang day is a bit like a fondue: a clay pot of hot
stock and meatballs is brought to the table and
placed on a small burner in the middle. Once the
soup is boiling you add a selection of ingredients to
the pot according to taste, choosing from side
plates featuring slices of raw beef (or venison), often
mixed with raw egg prior to cooking; sprigs of
herbs; various vegetables; yellow and white
noodles; tofu; dried sheets of soya bean (which
looks a bit like chicken skin); and mushrooms. Both
the stock and the dishes are replenished as long as
you keep on eating, and at the end of the meal the
bill is calculated according to the number of side
plates on the table. Restaurants specializing in sop
chhnang day often display a sign outside depicting
a steaming pan over a burner.
Another Cambodian favourite is sait gow ang ,
beef grilled over a small charcoal burner at the
table. Nibbled with pickled vegetables and fresh
herbs, it tends to be eaten as an evening snack to
accompany drinking. Similar in style but more of a
meal is chhnang phnom pleung , “volcano pot”, so
named because the burner is said to resemble a

Rice and noodles
Besides boiled rice, Cambodians enjoy rice cooked
up as a porridge called borbor , usually available at
market stalls, night markets and in some cheap
restaurants, either as breakfast or an evening dish.
Borbor can either be left unseasoned and used as a
base to which you add your own ingredients -
dried fish, pickles, salted egg or fried vegetables -
or cooked in stock, with pieces of chicken, fish or
pork and bean sprouts added before serving.
Shredded ginger, a squeeze of lime and spicy
soya-bean paste from pots at the table can also be
added to taste.
White rice-flour noodles, geautiev (pronounced
“ goy teal ”), are available in different shapes and sizes
- in fine threads for noodle soup, or wide and thick
for use in nom bany jowk . The latter is sold by
female street vendors from baskets dangling on
shoulder poles and consists of noodles served cold

TOP 5 FINE DINING
Chanrey Tree, Siem Reap See p.150
Cuisine Wat Damnak, Siem Reap
See p.152
Jaan Bai, Battambang See p.119
Malis, Phnom Penh See p.85
Tepui, Phnom Penh See p.83