Cooking like a local in Cambodia

I like cooking and also have learned cooking Khmer food from my wife.

I guess that Amok and Luklak are the two best known dishes but Amok in particular I rarely see in Khmer households.

Popular dishes are sour soups, noodle and rice dishes.

The actual cooking of many dishes is easy enough and not so different from other Asian cuisines. Preparation often takes longer than the actual cooking itself. Lots of slicing and dicing.

I quite like Khmer food, and cooking, though I do think Thai and Vietnamese food is better.

Plenty of recipes/how-to available on the internet, while apps such as Pinterest will lead you to food bloggers skilled in the Khmer cuisine.

Ginger, lemongrass, turmeric, garlic, ... can easily be found in markets and supermarkets.

No secrets :-) and agree with Hannostamm above regarding preparation time, but overall it is not difficult to cook Khmer food.

Advantage: your Khmer kids, friends, guests will love it (but so do I).

You might be a bit disappointed Priscilla, as there is no structural answer from my side.

As I love many types of international food, Mediterranean, Indian, Thai, Japanese and my favourite Indonesian food I tend to mix a few things when I cook.
I cook rice that is for sure, no more processed pasta, I use no processed products.
But I make curries that are related to the Thai Panaeng dishes but can easily be diverted to Indian curries. I roast chicken meat, add coconut milk/cream to it and then decide what to make. If I decide Indonesian there will be some curry paste, soy sauce and peanut butter, sesame seed, I cook in peanut oil, sesame oil or in olive oil.

But I like the Cambodian dishes too. As Hanno said it's not very special and on top less spicy than Thai food. But dishes like Amok fish and Loklak are among my favourites.
There is one specialty unique for Cambodia: grilled Kampot pepper, mostly with chicken and rice, where the pepper corns are still on the stems, so you either eat them out with your teeth or with your fork. The taste is very special and I only use Kampot pepper for cooking.

I am a horribly bad vegetables eater so I don't spend an hour cutting and cleaning veggies, although certain products are regulars, like mushrooms, ginger, spring onion and lemon grass. Of course garlic is standard.

So my cooking is a mix of what I like. But I must admit that I sometimes cook Cauliflower with curry sauce and baked potato cubes

Cheers.

Joe

As a retired chef (in the States) this is a topic that has interested me since living here (Siem Reap) the last 5 years.

In general, Khmer cuisine is not as "sophisticated" as it's larger neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam.  For instance the Chili Pastes (Kroeungs) have fewer ingredients than Thai curry pastes and the Vietnamese have incorporated more French influences in their cuisine than the Khmer people have.

If you are really talking LOCAL, you'd be cooking with wood or charcoal, depending on what you were cooking.  I live on a compound with two Khmer family entities plus my partner and me and we (the latter) are the only ones with a gas range w/ an electric oven. The others still cook traditionally.

Ingredients I would say are typical of many Khmer dishes are Fresh Ginger, Galangal, Lemongrass, Kafir Lime leaves, "Bird"Chilies [small, very hot], shallots (small), Dried Shrimp, Garlic + "chee" (herbs) like Coriander, Saw Mint, Spring Onion, Thai Basil, Holy (Khmer) Basil and Rice Paddy Herb (Máam) to name only a few. Black Pepper is also commonly used and some of the finest Black Pepper in the world is grown in Kampot, Cambodia.  One surprise I had when I joined my Khmer family was that dried Black Peppercorns are not used "raw" here as they are in the West. They are roasted before they are crushed or put in a pepper grinder........they are actually better than those I'd been using in the West.  Another aspect of Khmer cuisine that I have experienced is that soups are served with rice while "stews" (which tend to be sweet!) are frequently served with a baguette (a nod to the French). Soups and Salads are predominant in Khmer cuisine. Finally, a word has to be said about Prahok, a fermented fish paste that is salty and strong fishy tasting that is used in dips and a flavoring agent. You can buy Prahok in the market but if you aren't sure what variety of fish was used to make the Prahok, it needs to be thoroughly heated, before using, to be sure there are no parasites in the paste........It is wonderful and a little goes a long way. A simple, yet great, sauce served with street food is just salt with red chilis and lime juice.

As far as cooking classes are concerned, I have seen ads for such classes around Siem Reap  (and some in Phnom Penh when visiting), but I don't know how good they are. I use a couple of books that are pretty helpful. One is an old book that I still see at book stands, "The Book of Khmer Cooking" - hardcover, pinkish w/ photo of Amok, which is VERY poorly edited........for instance make sure you read the "Method" section because it might talk about ingredients that were NOT listed in the "Ingredients" section. It is very quaint in it's descriptions, like "let sit on flame till bubble with aroma" means boil it until it smells good.......stuff like that.  It's a really fun book. Another book I like is modern and has a lot of good details on ingredients and cooking methods.  It is titled, "Authentic Cambodian Recipes [from mother to daughter]" by Sorey Long.  My only problem with this book is that they didn't include more recipes [like 30 more!!!].......probably a matter of publishing cost because of so many photos.....too bad for us.

Easily prepared dishes you MUST try:  Burnt Chicken [Khmer free range] w/ Watergrass, Pig Leg Soup w/ Preserved Radish, Caramelized Pig Trotters [use Palm Sugar!] and SIMPLE Chicken Sour Soup w/ Herbs.......YUM, YUM, YUM and YUM!!!!