Cambodian Food: M’hope Ka’mai
Cambodian Food: M’hope Ka’mai
Lord Playboy’s Khmer Mother in Law shares some of her favourite Recipes with Khmer440.com. Despite being an acclaimed screenwriter and author she prefers to do her own cooking and says that it helps her relax. If any of our braver readers attempt cooking these recipes at home, please let us know the results! Ingredients and proportions tend to very in Cambodia from province to province, the recipes in this series draw on her life and learning to cook in Battambang. Amok trey [Fish amok] Ingredients: 1. Fish (trey roh or trey ch’dao) 500g 2. Nyo or gantuat leaves 200g 3. Coconut cream 500g 4. Dried red chillies 5 5. Kaffir lime leaves 10 leaves 6. Lemongrass, thinly sliced 3 dessertspoons 7. Galangal, finely chopped 1 teaspoon 8. Turmeric root, finely chopped 1 teaspoon 9. K’jiay, finely chopped 1 teaspoon 10. Garlic 1 bulb 11. Shallots 2 bulbs 12. Kapi (fermented shrimp paste) 1 teaspoon 13. Flour 1 teaspoon 14. Sugar, brown or white 2/3 of a dessertspoon 15. Fish sauce 1 teaspoonful 16. Salt 1 teaspoon 17. Soup powder half of a teaspoon Method: Remove the scales from the fish, clean it in water and then cut it into chunks or slices. Scrape the coconut and extract the thick and the thin coconut cream, keeping them separate. Pound the lemongrass, red chillies, galangal, turmeric, k’jiay, Kaffir lime leaves, garlic, shallots, and salt until finely ground, then mix in the kapi. Cut a circle from a banana leaf, and sew it to make a bowl-shaped basket. Then line the bottom of this basket with the nyo or gantuat leaves. Take half the thick coconut cream and the teaspoon of flour, and stir until the liquid has thickened. Set to one side. Take the fish, the remaining coconut creams, and spices, and stir together. Pour in a little fish sauce, the sugar, and the soup powder. Stir for about 15 minutes until it has thickened, then spoon it into the leaf basket or a dish. Steam it until cooked, then pour the stirred coconut cream that was set aside earlier over it. Sprinkle the finely chop Kaffir lime leaves over it. Steam it for a little longer, and then it’s ready to serve. Notes: i) ‘K’jiay’ is a spicy ginger-like root, sometimes known in English as ‘lesser ginger.’ ii) Nyo and gantuat translate as ‘a tree with edible fruits and leaves’. They are clearly some kind of herb/spice/seasoning but our investigation into an English name for them was unsuccessful, a trip to the market with a Khmer speaker might be needed to purchase these. Enjoy Kosal and Lord Playboy Additional Translation courtesy of Bachelor Translation: Tel 012 189 6518
Recipes from the royal mother in law, fantastic! My wife is quite an accomplished chef herself and loves to make asian food. We were talking about Amok last week and I will definately have her try this version. We actually found a store (I swear the address is 17 1/2 Mott St.) that sells almost all SE Asian ingredients. Please do try to get some more detail on the nyo and gantuat (doesn't tuat mean fat?) they may pose an issue. Please thank Kosal and I hope to see more in the future. How about something with pork next time, you know that magic animal that makes bacon, ham, pork chops, sausage, and so many other wonderful foods.
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Already have another 6 written and translated, we should be posting one a week.PhilipG wrote:Please thank Kosal and I hope to see more in the future.
As soon as she has finished writing her latest screenplay I can get her to do another 7 or 8 for us.
I would like this to run as a weekly article for several months, maybe until the end of the year with enough luck.
"We, the sons of John Company, have arrived"
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The Nyo leaf generally gets transliterated as slok ngor - it's the leaf from the Noni tree (morinda citrofolia).
Did your mother in law use kapi or prahok? Although I've seen a few recipes that use kapi (most ripped off from Nusara Thaitawat's book "Cambodian Cuisine") in practice, I've never seen a chef use it.
If you're interested, I wrote a bit about amok's history for the Wall Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1179774 ... lenews_wsj
Did your mother in law use kapi or prahok? Although I've seen a few recipes that use kapi (most ripped off from Nusara Thaitawat's book "Cambodian Cuisine") in practice, I've never seen a chef use it.
If you're interested, I wrote a bit about amok's history for the Wall Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1179774 ... lenews_wsj
Last edited by Phil (Phnomenon) on Tue Jul 17, 2007 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Clap, clap, clap. . .
Oh. . . . yeah!!!!
Great recipe to kick of this excellent idea. I've tried a bunch of beef dishes but haven't ventured into fish yet. I just think seafood is more sensitive to cooking "mistakes" . . .
I'm just going to try to follow this recipe step by step.
I just wish this recipe was posted 2 weeks earlier while I was in NE USA . . .Caught a beautiful striped bass that I think would have been perfect for this dish. . .
Keep em' coming.
Oh. . . . yeah!!!!
Great recipe to kick of this excellent idea. I've tried a bunch of beef dishes but haven't ventured into fish yet. I just think seafood is more sensitive to cooking "mistakes" . . .
I'm just going to try to follow this recipe step by step.
I just wish this recipe was posted 2 weeks earlier while I was in NE USA . . .Caught a beautiful striped bass that I think would have been perfect for this dish. . .
Keep em' coming.
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Philip G
Just for you, next week we'll have Spicy Sour Soup with Pork Ribs.
M’joo kreuang ch’eung jomnee j’rook
As PB says, these recipes really have been sourced from his mother-in-law and then we had them professionally translated. We'll be uploading one a week for the forseeable future.
Just for you, next week we'll have Spicy Sour Soup with Pork Ribs.
M’joo kreuang ch’eung jomnee j’rook
As PB says, these recipes really have been sourced from his mother-in-law and then we had them professionally translated. We'll be uploading one a week for the forseeable future.
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