Birthday in Kampuchea: Cooking Class

A few weeks ago, I celebrated my 28th birthday in Phnom Penh. It happened to also be the birthday weekend of several other friends here. In NYC, early September was always a parade of birthday parties and festivities as well, leading me to believe that I either tend to gravitate towards other Virgos, or there really is just a larger proportion of New Year's Eve babies out there than most of us realize. :)

This birthday was absolutely lovely, and it was fantastic to share it with some great people I've met here. Some highlights included a delicious chocolate cake prepared by my roommate, a fantastic (vegan!) khmer dinner with friends, watching a friend who works in water-sanitation present on parasites at "Nerd Night" (a event in Phnom Penh where nerdy, curious people come together to watch peers give 20-slide, 20-minute presentations on the topic of their choice), and my purchase of a glorious, comfy muu-muu for sleeping. I even got a dollar off because the vendor found out it was my "special day." But maybe the best part of this day was the incredible outpouring of birthday wishes, updates and hellos I received from friends and family. I miss you all so much and hearing from you was such a treat.

As a birthday gift to myself, I enrolled in an all-day cooking course, to master the art of cooking khmer (or to at least understand some basics). Bright and early at 9am on a Saturday, two friends and I began the day with a market tour; our cooking instructor lead us through the maze of stalls, stopping here and there to introduce us to all the leafy greens, bright fruits, edible flowers, tubers, chilies, noodles, dried/smoked/fermented meats, and more. At one stop, we tried more than 3 types of basil (each tasting distinctly different) and one unique herb, fishwort, that actually tasted.... fishy.

After our market introduction, we gathered all the necessary provisions for our lesson, and headed to the cooking school: a rooftop classroom equipped with stove top stations, cutting boards and gigantic wooden mortars and pestles. For the next 5 hours, we chopped, ground, marinated, tossed, and steamed our way through four delicious dishes. First up: fried spring rolls filled with taro and carrot. My only prior experience with taro has been in bubble tea form, so I was pretty excited to see how the cooked root vegetable tasted. Our instructor ran a tight ship, and any spring roll not rolled in perfect formation was rejected for frying; we later found out that a perfect roll was not only aesthetically preferably, but prevented oil from entering inside and kept the stuffing fresh and light, rather than mushy and oily.

Second up: fish amok. This is one of the first dishes I had in Phnom Penh, and is a Cambodian classic. Essentially, it is a coconut-milk based curry with fish, and prepared by steaming everything inside a banana leaf cup. Making every part of this dish by scratch involved grinding up kaffir lime rind, galangal (looks like ginger, but a more mellow biting flavor), lemongrass, garlic, turmeric, shallot, and red chilies in a mortar and pestle until smooth, adding coconut milk to this kroeung (a traditional herb paste made of these 7 ingredients), and marinating tiny chunks of fish fillet in this curry sauce so the flavors are absorbed. Next, you fashion a small cup out of fresh, young banana leaves and about five toothpicks. Our instructor's expectations for his pupils' performance on this task, like the spring rolls, were high. We each struggled to manipulate the stiff leaves and flimsy toothpicks, and probably went through four or more iterations of a cup until one was deemed satisfactory for fish amok. This tiny cup was then filled with our curry and set in a steamer for 30 minutes. During this time, we sat around, sipped Angkor beer with our instructor, chatted about food and life in Cambodia and then... we ate! Fish amok is one of my absolute favorite things to eat here. It's a lighter coconut curry than most, and the steaming process keeps the flavors bright and the fish texture very lovely.

Third up: banana bud salad with chicken. This delectable, raw salad's main ingredient is the bud of a banana tree, which is sort of like a tender husk. We finely julienned a few leaves of the bud, along with red pepper, coriander, mint, and basil, and added shredded poached chicken breast. We topped it off with crushed peanuts, lime juice, and a dressing of fish sauce, red chili, garlic, palm sugar and more lime juice. The banana bud is probably most similar to cabbage in texture, but the flavor is very neutral, with just a hint of sweetness. Another definite winner.

Last up: sticky rice and mango. This has long been a favorite food of mine, and for some reason I held fast to the belief that sticky rice is difficult to make. I assumed it involved at least 1-2 special piece of kitchen equipment that I would never own, involved a long and arduous cooking process, included coconut milk and perhaps other ingredients not readily available in North America, and a very special type of rice. I was only correct on one of these assumptions, and only partly. Cooking sticky rice does require a certain type of rice, but I wouldn't necessarily call it special; it's simply a more glutenous type of rice that becomes, well... sticky during cooking. So, we just added this rice to boiling water and let it cook. Easy peasy. While we were waiting for the rice to stick-ify, we chopped up some mango and prepared a finger-licking delicious sauce of palm sugar, butter, and coconut milk. This is perhaps the most easy and delectable dessert I've ever made. All in all, a day well spent!