Cuisine

Cambodian

Fish amok is a steamed curry set in banana leaf, thick with coconut and a kroeung paste of lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, kaffir lime and garlic. The fish is so gently cooked it barely flakes, and the custard-like sauce should hold a spoon, not run like a Thai coconut soup. A slice of noni leaf or similar bitter green sometimes sits under the fish. This is a celebration-and-restaurant plate more than a weekday stir-fry. The wider Khmer table is prahok (fermented fish), sour soups, grilled meats and a herb pile that looks neighbourly to Vietnam and tastes less of fish sauce and more of prahok and lime.

Khmer court and village cooking used freshwater fish from the Tonlé Sap and the Mekong long before coconut custard curries were plated for visitors. Amok as a steamed, thickened curry is the dish tourism exported. French colonial pastry left little on this plate. Thai and Vietnamese neighbours share lemongrass and galangal; Cambodia's kroeung and prahok are the local backbone. Treating amok as a mild Thai fish curry is the usual shortcut. The banana-leaf set and the thicker, almost savoury-custard texture are the Khmer part.

Kroeung must be pounded or blitzed until the fibres break and the paste smells citrus-rooty. Coconut cream binds. Eggs sometimes help the set. Steam, do not boil, or the custard splits. Banana leaf perfumes and holds. Cambodian cooking overlaps Thai coconut curries and Vietnamese herbs. It is a separate fermented-fish and kroeung kitchen.