My muscles ached and my stomach rumbled as I collapsed into the chair to admire the fruit, or fish, of my hard labour. Before me sat a plate of Cambodia’s prize dish, an aromatic golden amok, delicately decorated with coconut cream and shredded lime leaves and red chilli, served up in a banana leaf bowl. It looked and smelt great.
Being a ‘probably could cook but can’t be bothered’ type of person, cookery classes aren’t my thing. But in the short time I’ve been in Cambodia, I’ve been won over by the cuisine and was keen to find out more about what sets this country apart from the more well-known foods of neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam.
So I signed up to Frizz restaurant’s cookery class and started the day with a colourful trip to Kandal market to source
our ingredients amid the chaos of swaying, sweating slabs of meat and flapping fish heads taking their final gasps for air before landing at the rooftop terrace kitchen. Here, we spent the next five hours tirelessly shredding, squeezing, chopping, crushing, pounding, slicing and grinding as we worked up an appetite fit to scoff the food we served ourselves along the way.
First up was chaio yor, or fried spring rolls made with carrot, taro and peanuts – a dish that’s easy to make, right? Wrong. The key ingredient here is the taro root, which in its raw form is toxic, triggering a harsh itching in the throat.
After shredding it into strips, heaps of salt were added, the moisture massaged out and the taro pressed into small balls to be washed in clean water. To be sure, this was done not once, not twice, but three times.
Next was for me was the dish of the day – amok. Sold as Cambodia’s national dish, amok is a zesty, flavoursome steamed curried fish cooked in a banana leaf and involves enough gruelling grinding in the heavy mortar and pestle to make even Popeye break out in a sweat.
Finally finished, I tucked in, reluctant to ruin my creation, and, boy, was it worth the slog. With each chew came a new surprise. Smack, pop, pow: the sharp lemon grass, the sweet spice of the galangal and coconut juice, the tingle of the garlic, the bite of the salt, the spice of the chilli, the sour kick of the fish paste.
Then there’s the tigerfish that fell apart on my fork and melted in my mouth. Lip-smackingly delicious just doesn’t do it justice, and I’d actually created it – with a little help.
Feeling good, I ground my way through the afternoon to rustle up banana blossom salad made with mint, basil, fishwort, Asian coriander and chicken, followed by sticky rice and mango dessert, draped in palm sugar syrup.
But it was the amok that stayed with me and it was so damn good I’ve been craving it ever since. In fact, I ordered it the other day and it just wasn’t the same so it looks like I’ll have to get myself in the kitchen after all.
Cambodian Cooking Class, Frizz Restaurant, #67 St. 240 ($23 for a full day, $15 for a half day).