Sharing food in South East Asia

Welcome to my first Blog!

Cambodia and Thailand are favourites of mine to visit. The food, the people and yes, the weather!

I have taken a sabbatical this winter for two reasons.

1. To inspire myself for summer menus; and
2. Give the body a rest from a big 12 months with work, re-opening three and running four food venues.
3. To get warm!

Last night my website was created by my very good friend. (Yes, she’s amazing). So now I can blog to my heart’s content. Writing has always been one of my favourite ways of sharing information, although some would say it’s not my forte – I may be known to chat a fair bit 😉

So, for today’s blog…Now, I can’t say it’s this was the best day I’ve had here on my workation, but it is equal best.

After my mind taking three weeks to rest from cooking, and eating out at any and every restaurant including street food of varied limits of hygiene, I headed off in a rickshaw with my newest Croatian co-working friend into Pnomh Penh city.

I went to the supermarket. A bottle of French wine, local cider, veges, Aussie beef, noodles, fruit etc etc later, I spent US$70, which is about the average Cambodian low-income earner’s monthly income. About two thirds of this was the Aussie chuck steak and Another Passapp rickshaw back to the palace (co-working space) and made a quick noodle soup. Thing is, you can’t do anything here in the kitchen without being very closely followed when they know you’re a chef! So I ended up cooking for 8, with two gorgeous Cambodian ladies who do the cleaning here.  With them watching me work, and me showing them what to do, we cooked a delightful fusion of Asian styles with Aussie beef, vermicelli noodles and broth.

I don’t know much Khmer, but a big thumbs up, an ‘Ah-kun’ (thank you) and beaming smiles spoke volumes.

It’s good for the heart of cook and share with others, especially when you know that’s probably the first Australian beef they’ve ever eaten, and maybe the last. Although tomorrow I’m making a slow-cooked beef stew and mash, so we will see how that goes!

Most meat here is poached or grilled on fire.  Energy is expensive and most Cambodian people are exceedingly poor on a world scale.  Beef is not commonly eaten, mostly chicken, green vegetables, herbs and fish.  We are situated in our gorgeous co-working space called the Outpost in Pnomh Penh.  It’s seriously located at the junction of the Tonle Sap River and the might Mekong River.  The rivers are very active, even in this rainy season.  Fun fact: The Tonle Sap River is the only river to flow backwards away from the sea in the rainy season when the Mekong flows so strongly it pushes water up in to the Tonle Sap.  The rivers are fished by the local poor people who bring up their whole family on the long boats covered with tarps and various prices of metal sheets to keep dry and well, not cool, but less hot.

Visiting Cambodia is not easy on the heartstrings.  Children begging and washing in the dirty rivers, people with disablility begging. I met a lovely English guy in the co-working space who teaches child victims of sex trafficking how to play sport and play again, after their childhood was taken away. I can only hope that by eating at small family run establishments rather than foreign owned hotels, I hope to be contributing to the local economy as a tourist.

But I get far more out of being here than Cambodia gets from me being here.

Let me digress… On my previous visit here, I stayed in Siem Reap.  Sure, Angkor Wat is nearby.  But so is Angkor Thom, and that is an experience we all should have.  There is a certain kind of cool peacefulness in this ancient city of temples, run down with old ficus trees with their massive roots growing out of the ruins. It’s hard to put into words, but it’s worth a few mornings, to explore the ruins of so many beautiful ruins!

And the food, oh the food. We tried the Amok Trey, a fish curry made with lemongrass and fresh turmeric, galangal, fish sauce, sugar, nothing unusual for Asia.  After eating Amok/Amouk for five days, my friend and I went to the first restaurant we had it, which we thought was the best and asked if they did cooking classes. “Yes, our chef Somontha cooked for the King,’ our server said proudly.  So for USD25 each we cooked for a couple of hours, learning how to use Amok paste with beef skewers, fish curry, chicken.

I now serve Amok curry on each of my cafes.  Once people try it, they almost always ask what is in it?  Where did it come from? It’s funny, if we put it on the menu as Amok Curry, is does not sell.  Give it a name of it’s most important ingredients, which are now buzz words, and it flies off the board.  Fresh Lemongrass and Turmeric Fish Curry?  Yes please! Hopefully, by promoting the local food of this country, I can influence people to visit this beautiful countrya and spend some money in positive tourism and maybe even volunteer to help the local children to learn English or other abilities to enable them to trade, talk to tourists and get better paying work in this harsh world with no welfare.

Check out the Amok curry recipe I’ll post on this site, and try it for yourself.  Top tip: Make a big batch and freeze the paste in little packets for next time you   get the urge to have it.  Trust me, it won’t be long after the first meal!