Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Khmer cooking 101

So today at work we are having an international lunch. On my floor we have people who have immigrated from over 15 different countries - each of us were asked to bring along a dish of our home country. Now I knew deep in my heart that a meat pie would not stack up against a home made Indian curry or a Spanish paella.

So I went with my adopted country of Cambodia to add to the variety.

With the help of Elephant Walk's amazing cookbook and My Linh's great cooking website last night I cooked some desserts for the first time without the supervision of Khmer women. I think I did okay! The truth will be in the tasting at lunch time.

I went with 2 dishes:
Bai Ta Nop Sway (Sticky Rice with Mango) - which, while quite good I must admit, was not a patch on Amok or Khmer Kitchen's.
Borbo Skar Chia Mui Poat (Corn Pudding) - I'm not sure if this is the correct name as the recipe I used substituted the rice with tapioca.

The number one lesson I learnt cooking these yummy, yummy bong-eims??? If it doesn't taste right keep adding the sugar. My teeth already hurt...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have the Elephant Walk book? Tasty! Still can't get it over here. Hopefully will be able to in the next six months.

Might have to get some sticky rice for dessert tonight :) hope yours turned out chngany'.

What's the most way-out dish that anyone turned up with? I was thinking you should have turned up with a platter of assorted creepy-crawlies for everyone to sample...

Snacky

Kratzy said...

I got Elephant Walk on Amazon for not too much at all. I have recently discovered the "as new" second hand market on Amazon and have had really good results so far. One as-new book for $2 US - shipping killed me, but still got it cheaper than I could locally.

The most out of the way dish was a curry that one of the Indian girls made. Everything was pretty bland to be honest. Next time we are trying to get everyone to be a little more adventurous.

How's Cambodge treating you? What are you up to for Christmas?

Anonymous said...

Things here are going very well. Too busy to get most things done, or so it seems... not the most productive place for a social person to be, Phnom Penh - too many distractions.

For xmas, brothers Steve and Mike will be in PP. Xmas eve I'm planning on going to a mini-festival being held by one of the orphanages/schools and on xmas day there's a lot of options but it looks like champagne breakfast followed by a feast on a riverboat cruise with a bunch of other AYADs and their partners... :) has been good catching up with Steve (he's been here a week now, we went down to Kampot/Phnom Bokor on the weekend) and I'm really looking forward to being able to catch up with Mike properly.

Xmas plans for the Kratzmeister = ???

Kratzy said...

Give my love to Mr Mike!

My Christmas plans??? I am finishing up work tommorrow lunchtime and I've dinner plans with friends Friday and Saturday nights.

Come Christmas Eve we are heading to the beach at the Gold Coast for 4 days R&R with Mark's family. Christmas Day church to start the day followed by 5 hours of eating and an afternoon nap. boxing Day is catching up with friends who will also be on the GC with family.

New Years is still too far away for plans to be made. At present I am just trying to get past Christmas Day! We do have a fun evening planned on 29th with open air cinema showing ET... I've never seen that movie so I am looking forward to it.