My Experiment dishes

My biggest interests are eating and cooking. I started cooking at a very young age and it’s part of Cambodian culture to cook for family and people we care about. I like cooking at home and fortunately been allowed to cook at work.

From the past years, I’ve been around people who are very contious about eating healthy and different kind of food including vegetarian and vegan food.

Below are my vegetarian dishes menu and I am glad to share with you.

  • Mushroom Omelet

We like to have at least two portion on the table when eating, fried eggs is one of the side dish. Mushroom is known to be replaceable with meat, I decided to cook rice straw mushroom or you can use any kind of mushroom.

Ingredients:

  • Mushroom- 100g
  • Egg- 3 pieces
  • Salt- 1/2 teaspoon
  • Soy sauce 1/2 teaspoon
  • Pepper- to the taste
  • Oil

Method:

  • Break the eggs and beat it for 1 minute and add two spoonful of water
  • Cut the mushroom into half and then add it into the egg bowl, add salt and pepper and beat again for a few seconds.
  • Heat the pan, and add oil then fried the egg as big and thick as you want. Cook it for 2 minutes and done.
  • Eggplant Omelet

Eggplant is usually grilled and fried or eaten raw to deep with fish paste. I imagined, eggplant and egg would a beautiful pizza slices. This one is as easy as the mushroom omelet, only that the eggplant has a little sweetness to it. What you do is to cut the eggplant into 3 pieces then cut each pieces of eggplants into small pieces. (watch video….coming..)

  • My Vegetable Curry

Many countries claim to have their own curry, as well as Cambodia. Cambodia curry tend to be sweeter and thicker than other curry I’ve tried. I didn’t really enjoy the taste of curry until one day at work(2015), a friend of my ex-boss cooked curry that the whole place smell like armpit(a really bad armpit smell). My impression was, what the hell is that smell? Seriously? But wow! I could not believe that armpit smell curry tasted so good, really really good and I never forget that. Too bad, I did not get a chance to ask for the recipe. But because of that, I got inspired to make my own curry without meat and experiment to find the same smell. Update: I think I’ve found the mistery smell, it’s……….”cumin powder”. Anyway, let’s go to my own recipes.

  • Vegetable curry recipe:

Ingredients:

  • Potato 3 pieces
  • Carrot 1 piece
  • Eggplant
  • Lady finger
  • Beancurd skin
  • Curry paste
  • Lemongrass
  • Kaffir leaves
  • Galangal
  • chillies
  • Coconut milk 200g
  • Shrimp pasted, salt 3tsp & sugar 1tsp.

Method:

  • Step 1: Heat the pan and put some oil then stir fried curry paste with lemongrass & galangal (at least for 40 seconds). Add 1/3 coconut milk,
  • Step 2: Put potato, carrot and eggplants into the pot and stir them a bit and leave it for 10 to 15 minutes
Learn more

How to make “Curry paste” or “Kroeung Khmer”

Borrow from the Internet
  • Chopped lemongrass
  • Chopped tumeric
  • Chopped galangal
  • Kaffir lime leaves
  • And garlic

Pound or grind them all together until it blend together. Then this is how it should look like.

ADIDAF- All day I dream about food

I always feel like I was born to eat. When some people say that they can live even if they don’t eat for many days, but I’ll die if I just miss one MEAL. There are so many good food out there. Growing up in Cambodia, I was taught to cook since I was 12 years old and since then I cooked for my family everyday. I love my mother’s food and I was glad she taught me how to cook delicious meals.

Let me introduce you some of Cambodian homemade dishes which are cooked by me and they are some of my favorite dishes.

Stir fried chicken with lemongrass (spicy) or Chha Kdao (in Khmer)

Chha Kdao is an easy home cooking dish, but very delicious. The combination of all the spices are the star of the dish. The chicken is juicy and tender with a little bit of spiciness which makes it so highly flavored. It’s never a bad idea for some rice. This is also a kind of food that we, Cambodian eat when we go out to drink at Beer Garden.

Food recipe

Ingredients

Method

  • Step 1: heat up the pan before adding the oil and then fry the kaffir lime leaves, cut lemongrass, chopped galangal and chili for 30 seconds with small fire. (make sure it doesn’t burn). Once it’s done, scope it out and put it aside.
  • Step 2: heat the pan again and put the oil and fry chopped garlic until it becomes golden color. After that put the chicken in and fry until it’s cooked (2 mins).
  • Step 3: Season it with salt, sugar and fish sauce. Taste if you like the taste if not you can adjust it a little. When you like the taste, put the fried kaffir, galangal, lemongrass and chili into the pan and fry them together.
  • Step 4: pick the basil and through them in. The food is done.
  • Step 5: Display your plate with the pieces of salad as much as you wish.

Beef loc lac

Beef loc lac is basically a portion of fried meat that comes with some raw fresh vegetables and an egg on top. The black sauce is pepper sauce which is a plus for the dish. Loc lac is one of the famous dishes in Cambodia because it’s fast, tasty and healthy.

Food recipe

Ingredient

  • sliced Beef 200 grams
  • Salads as much as you like
  • Sliced tomatoes as you like
  • Sliced onions as you like
  • Egg 1 egg
  • Pepper powder 2 teaspoons
  • Salt 1 teaspoon (for cooking), 1 teaspoon for the sauce
  • Sugar 2 teaspoons (for cooking), 2 teaspoons (for sauce)
  • Chicken powder 1 teaspoon (for cooking), 1 teaspoon (for sauce)
  • limes 3 teaspoons
  • Chopped garlic
  • Oyster Sauce 1 teaspoon

Method

  • Step 1- Make the pepper sauce. Mix pepper with salt, sugar, chicken powder and lime juice.
  • Step 2- Fry the egg. When the egg is cooked keep it aside.
  • Step 3- heat the pan and fry the garlic until it turns to golden color.
  • Step 4- put the season into the pan (salt, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, oyster sauce & chicken powder)
  • Step 5- add the sliced meat inside the seasoning, but make sure that the meat is not too cooked.
  • Step 6- Display the plate with salads, sliced onions and sliced tomatoes the way you prefer. Bon appetit!

Stir Fried Chicken with ginger

If you love ginger then this is your best choice of food. Ginger is good in many ways such as healing cold, reduce muscle pain and relieve nausea. The sauce that comes out of the combination of ginger and seasoning give a little bit spicy taste would keep you eating more and more until you realize you’ve finished it.

Food recipe

Ingredient

  • Chicken meat 200 grams
  • Shredded ginger 100 grams
  • Chopped garlic 1 teaspoon
  • Salt 1 teaspoon
  • Sugar 2 teaspoons
  • Chicken powder 1 teaspoon
  • Oyster sauce 1 teaspoon
  • Cut spring onion 1 piece

Method

  • Step 1- heat the pan and fry the garlic. Then fry the chicken for 30 seconds.
  • Step 2- Season it with salt, sugar, chicken powder and oyster sauce. stir it for 15 seconds and then add a little bit of water.
  • Step 3- after the water is boiled and look a little thicker, please put all the ginger inside. Cook it another 30 seconds then the food is complete.
  • Step 4- put the food on the plate and use the spring onion for topping. Enjoy!

Cambodian noodle or Nom Banhchok

Nom Banhchok is a typical Cambodian dish. Nom Banh Chok is made from rice and it comes with Somlor Khmer which means green fish gravy soup. The soup contains “Kreung” which includes lemongrass, turmeric, galangal, garlic, kaffir lime leaf and coconut milk. The noodle comes with crisp raw fresh vegetables including water lily, banana flower, cucumber, long bean, bean sprout and cabbage. Nom Banh Chok has been served during religious ceremonies or funerals or to welcome guests. Every morning people gather at Nom Banh Chok for their breakfast. Since, it’s a very delicacy dish, it is now becoming more than just breakfast, but also for dinner.

Below is just the recipe for the soup. The noodle you can possibly find it at the Asian market and you can also prepare the vegetables the way you want.

Food Recipe for Cambodian noodle soup

Ingredient

  • 2 liters of water
  • 2 spoonfuls of chopped lemongrass
  • 1 teaspoon of chopped turmeric
  • 1 teaspoon of chopped galangal
  • 1 teaspoon of chopped Kaffir lime leaf 
  • 2 pieces of garlic
  • One snakehead fish o​r any fish you could find
  • 300​​​​​​​​​grams Coconut Milk
  • 3 teaspoons of sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • 1 rice spoon of fish sauce
  • 2 teaspoons of chicken powder 
  • 1 teaspoon of Fish pasted (only if you can find)

Method

  • Step 1- Wash a fish with salt and boil it with a little bit of salt. While the fish is boiling you can prepare other things.
  • Step 2- Make “Kroeung” (Khmer curry paste). Grind or pound lemongrass, turmeric, galangal, kaffir lime leaf, and garlic together until it’s completely blend together. Then keep them aside. keep an eye on the fish whether it’s cooked yet. After 20 minutes the fish should be cooked.
  • Step 3- When the fish is cooked, take it out of the hot water and let it sit for 5 minutes before deboning it. When deboning, make sure there’s no more bone in the fish meat. pour the soup from boiling the fish into another pot, but not all the way because you don’t want the dirt at the bottom of the pot. Keep the soup.
  • Step 4- Pound the fish and the spice together again until it becomes fluffy
  • Step 5- Warm the fish soup that you kept and add some water until 2 liters and wait till it’s boiled again.
  • Step 6- Once the water is boiled, immediately put the fish paste in for at least one minute or if you don’t have fish paste, you could use fish sauce instead. After one minute, scoop the fish with spice and place it into a bowl. scoop some hot water from the pot and put it into the fishbowl then use the spoon to stir it. Add sugar, salt, chicken powder into the bowl then through it in the pot.
  • Step 7- After you throw everything inside, please stir it a little. When the soup is boiled again please put the coconut milk and wait for 30 second and turn off the fire, it’s done now.

Beef noodle Soup

Noodle soup is mainly for breakfast in Cambodia. it’s a very meaty noodle even the soup itself is cooked for one or two hours with a lot of meat and bones. The meat just melt in your mouth when you bite it, but the beef is extra. A lot of people prefer it with strong taste like salty and sour and a little spicy. You will love it, so let me introduce you the secret recipe of the soup for the noodle below the picture.

Food recipe

Ingredient

  • Pork legs broken into halves 1/2
  • Sliced beef (as you like)
  • Dry shrimp 10 grams
  • Salted radish 1 piece cut into 3
  • Dry squid 2 pieces
  • Salt 1 rice spoon
  • Sugar 1 and half rice spoon
  • Chicken powder 2 teaspoons
  • fish sauce 1 rice spoon
  • Water 3 liters
  • Onion 1 cut into 4
  • Carrot 1 piece
  • Radish 1 piece
  • Fried garlic for topping
  • Cut spring onion for topping
  • Cut Culantro or saw tooth coriander (topping)
  • Bean sprout 20 grams
  • Cai xin 30 grams (cut into short)

Method

  • Step 1- boil the water until it’s boiled. When it’s boiled then add the salt, sugar, chicken powder, fish sauce, salted radish, dry shrimp and dry squid. Let it boils for 5 minutes.
  • Step 2- Scoop some water and put into to pork and rinse it off (so the meat doesn’t smell fishy). After doing that for a few times, then put all the bone inside. Let it boiled for 10 minutes.
  • Step 3- after 10 minutes, throw the radish, carrot and onion into the soup. Again, cook it for at least another 45 minutes more.
  • Step 4- leave the soup boil. Then use another pot to heat 1 and half liter of water until it’s boiled. First, blanch the noodle with the hot water till it’s well done, then put it in a bowl. Secondly, the blanch bean sprout and cai xin together with the hot water for 30 seconds.
  • Step 5- put the vegetables on top of the noodle. After that place the sliced beef on top of the vegetables. Scoop the soup that was boiling into the bowl.
  • Step 6- put the spring onion and coriander and fried garlic inside the bowl. There you have a delicious bowl of noodle soup.

Note: you can cook the soup for more than one hour, just remember when the water is a bit dry out, please add more water or you can just turn off the fire and warm it every time when you want to eat only.

Korkou Soup (Vegetarian dish)

Korkou soup is flavorful and colourful as you could see in the picture. It’s a very healthy choice of food. With this portion you can simply combine any vegetables you like. In Cambodia, we could use everything we find around the house. The reason why we can do that because “Korkou” means “to mix and stir”. So you don’t have to care what’s inside as long as you play right with the combination. I am going to describe the exact vegetables I used in the this soup based on this picture below.

Food recipe

Ingredient

  • Shredded green papaya 1/4
  • Cut pumpkin 100 grams
  • small Eggplant or normal eggplant cut into half
  • pealed young jackfruit and then slice into small pieces
  • Long bean 4 pieces
  • Spinach 100 grams
  • Mushroom as you like
  • Tofu as you like
  • Kroeung (click here)
  • salt 2 teaspoon
  • Kaffir lime leaves 2 pieces
  • Cooking oil
  • 1 and half liter of water

Note: Separate the hard vegetables (papaya, pumpkin, long bean, eggplant & jack fruit) and soft vegetables (spinach & mushroom)

Method

  • Step 1- Heat the pot and add some cooking oil. Then fry the “Kroeung” with kaffir leaves for 30 seconds.
  • Step 2- through the hard vegetables inside the pot and add the salt then stir it until it’s cooked. (When it’s too dry add a little bit of water)
  • Step 3- once the vegetables is done add the 1 and half liter water and wait until it’s boiled. When the water is boiled quickly add all the rest of the vegetables and tofu into the soup. The food is now done. Enjoy your meal!

Stir fried long bean with tofu (Vegetarian)

Long bean is an energy food and it has low calories. stir fried long bean is super easy and cheap to cook. who wouldn’t love its crunchiness with a little sweetness, especially has many nutrients.

Food recipe

Ingredient

  • Long bean 200 grams
  • Tofu 2 pieces (cut into small)
  • Garlic 4 pieces (hit it flat)
  • Chopped garlic for fry
  • Salt 1 teaspoon
  • Soy sauce 1 teaspoon
  • Sugar 1 teaspoon

Method

  • Step 1- heat the pan and put some oil. Then fry the long bean with medium fire (not so strong) for 15 seconds. After that put it into a plate.
  • Step 2. heat the pan again and fry tofu. Once the tofu is done. put it into another plate.
  • Step 3- heat the fire again and fry the chopped garlic and the flat garlic. Then put salt, soy sauce and sugar into the pan. Add a little water then put the long bean and tofu into the pan. Stir it for 15 seconds. The food is ready! what are you waiting for? please turn off the fire.

Stir fried bean sprouts with chive leaf & tofu (Vegetarian)

Bean sprouts is not so much different from long bean. They both have crunchiness and sweetness and the most important is they are good for our bodies.

Food recipe

Ingredient

  • Bean Sprout
  • Chive leaf
  • Tofu 2 pieces (cut into small)
  • Chopped garlic for fry
  • Salt 1 teaspoon
  • Soy sauce 1 teaspoon
  • Sugar 1 teaspoon

Method

  • Step 1- heat the pan and put some oil. Then fry the long bean with medium fire (not so strong) for 15 seconds. After that put it into a plate.
  • Step 2. heat the pan again and fry tofu. Once the tofu is done. put it into another plate.
  • Step 3- heat the fire again and fry the chopped garlic and the flat garlic. Then put salt, soy sauce and sugar into the pan. Add a little water then put the long bean and tofu into the pan. Stir it for 15 seconds. The food is ready! what are you waiting for? please turn off the fire.

Stir fried mixed vegetable

You are what you eat! I want to be beautiful and colorful, so I eat mixed vegetable. I love this dish because it’s a combination of the vegetable that I love with different colors. The most important is the freshness taste and their advantages.

Food recipe

Ingredient

Method

  • Step 1- boil the corn for 30 seconds and then let it sit.
  • Step 2- heat the pan and add some oil then fry the garlic. Next, put all the vegetables and fry it for 30 seconds.
  • Step 3 After that, add the salt and soy sauce. Then fry it for another 15 minutes. It sounds too easy, right? well, it is. You now have a delicious healthy dish.

Stir fried cucumber with egg

Cucumber is usually eaten raw, but do you know that you can actually cook it? yes, you could possibly cook it and it’s surprisingly delicious.

Food recipe

Ingredient

  • Cucumber (cut or slice)
  • egg 1 piece
  • Chopped garlic
  • Cut spring onion
  • Salt 1 teaspoon
  • Soy sauce 1 teaspoon
  • Pepper a little bit

Method

  • Step 1- Heat the pan and add some oil then fry the garlic.
  • Step 2- break the egg and beat it for a few seconds. put it into the hot pan that you are still frying the garlic.
  • Step 3- Stir the egg until it is very well done. Then season it with salt, soy sauce and pepper.
  • Step 4- add the cucumber into the pan and then stir it for 7 to 8 minutes. The food is ready for the day! Enjoy!

Fried instant noodle with vegetable and egg

If you are a vegetarian, I guess there are time you have eaten fried noodle and the way you cook probably not the same as mine. Let see!

Food recipe

Ingredient

  • Instant noodle 1 package
  • Cut Cai xin 30 grams
  • Cut cabbage 30 grams
  • Egg 1 piece (beat it)
  • Chopped garlic
  • Salt 1/2 teaspoon
  • Sugar 1 teaspoon
  • Soy sauce 1 teaspoon

Method

  • Step 1- blanch the noodle and let it sit.
  • Step 2- heat the pan and fry the garlic with some oil. Then fry the cai xin and cut cabbage for 30 seconds. Don’t forget to add very little of water.
  • Step 3- add the salt, soy sauce, sugar and soy sauce and then put the noodle and stir fry them all together for 30 seconds.
  • Step 4- add the egg into the pan then stir fry for another 45 seconds. Now you have a simple vegetarian fried noodle. Enjoy your food!

THANK YOU FOR READING MY FOOD BLOG. I HOPE THAT MY FOOD RECIPE FIND YOU WELL. PLEASE KEEP CHECKING ON MY WEBSITE FOR MORE ARTICLE.

My 3 Favorite Asian Dishes And The Story Behind Them

Since there is plenty of delicious food in the whole world. Some People said that “a delicacy is usually rare or expensive food”, but to me, delicacy is when you enjoy the most of your food.   Let me introduce you to my 3 Asian favorite Asian dishes of all time. 
1. Spicy Malay Curry Curry is almost a worldwide dish and each country would have its own recipe. Spicy Malay Curry is my favorite because it tastes so unique. 
Making curry taking a lot of time, but it worth the time for a beautiful and delicacy dish for the family. Most of the time curry has been cooked for big families and when there is a celebration whether a wedding, funeral or reunion because it tastes better with your loved ones. There is curry paste, ginger, tamarind, chili paste, lemongrass, lime leaf, galangal, turmeric, garlic, and coconut milk. Malay curry is not so as my Cambodian Curry, instead, it tastes a bit salty, spicy, sour from the tamarind and I can smell the fragrance from the spices which makes a wonderful combination.

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2. Chinese Dimsums
I sometimes dream of having some Dimsum because it tastes so good. It’s almost the best snack-food that I’ve ever tried. The fresh steamed minced pork and shrimp inside the perfect soft sticky rice wrapped and deep in the soya sauce and fresh chili and a bit of vinegar make the world a better place. The meat is incredibly seasoned and the juice from the shrimp just keeps me eating more and more. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach. 

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3. Thai stir-fried lemongrass with basil (spicy)
All-day I dream about food. 
Spicy Thai stir-fried lemongrass with basil is the easiest and yet it’s a very enjoyable dish because of the edible lemongrass and basil with crunchy deep-fried chicken or fresh shrimp, especially a bit spicy and salty. I love having this dish when the weather is cool otherwise I would sweat like a pig eating spicy food under humid weather. It tastes better with alcohol, especially for either sad or happy people, we can eat all day long. After all, food always makes me happy.

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Cambodian Village Wedding

After falling in love, Cambodians consider wedding party as a very important traditional celebration. Most of the time men are supposed to propose to women with the agreement between both parents. Men would handle with all the payment for the party which depends on how much the bride’s parents ask for, but sometimes they just agree to help each other by spending half half. The payment for proposing based on the discussion, it might not be so much if the bride is just an ordinary girl, but if she comes from an educated family it might start from 5,000 USD to 10, 000 USD or if the bride is His/Her excellency than it might be a lot more till million dollars. Usually, the minimum of guests invited are from 150 people (15 tables). People from different area celebrate it differently, even the number of days, the preparation, the timing and performing. wedding can be a one day, two days or three days celebration.

At the village, people are still traditionally helping each other all the time, whether there’s funeral, wedding party, house shifting/building and other religion ceremonies. According to the photos above, you could see almost people from the whole village came and help with the celebration. Some of them were asked to come to help, some came by themselves bringing some useful kitchen tools. Talking about tools, have you ever wondered how could the host manage to have so many kitchen stuff? Well, the answer is firstly, they borrowed from pagoda (Buddhist temple). Secondly, they borrowed from their neighbors and lastly, they rent it from the cook or it includes with the food deal (agreement between the cook).

Why did the villagers come and help?

Again, it’s a traditional way of helping each other. It’s like now I help you later you help me back. Another word, who wouldn’t want a free loads of delicious food? after lending a helping hand they all get free food by joining the tables or pack home. When I said free food, doesn’t mean that they don’t have to pay for the wedding because this is not the main dinner/lunch for the guests officially invited.

The final Wedding food (The main dinner or lunch)

In order to not spending so much on food, villagers usually plan the wedding ahead half a year or one year before. They feed the animals that they plan to use for the celebration such as cows, pigs, chickens, ducks and fish. For this particular wedding, I was told that they have slaughtered 2 cows, 30 chickens, 100 fish and 3 pigs. It sounds horrified about how much meat they’ve used, right? But can you imagine all these food fed a thousand mouths?

For one table can fit maximum 10 people and if the table is not completely filled the waiter/waitress would not serve the guests on that table yet. It comes with so much food which is a 6 course menu includes appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert.

On every each table is set with ten glasses, 10 small bowls with spoons, chopsticks, can fruit juices and a lot of beers (can be refilled). It starts with the appetizer which is the a plate of the combination of dry beef, fried vegetable, cashew nut, pickle, pate and meat balls. The food will be served one at the time until the last course.

There is always music in between the food and beverages. It could be a band hire by the couple or the recorded audios. If it’s the live band, the guests can join with the singing as well if they want. Most of the guests drink like highs school kids. A few hours after the eating and drinking, it’s then the dancing time.

How much do you pay for the wedding as a guest?

That based on how close you are to the bride and groom and how much you could afford to pay or it is necessarily upon your satisfaction. At the village, people pay minimum 5 USD (But that is not so appropriate). The common payment starts from 10 USD to 15 USD or more. The payment rate actually can be changed year by year.

Celebrating the wedding is exhausting!

Yes, it’s very exhausting. Can you imagine waking up from 4 O’clock in the morning to do all the make up and change 12 traditional costumes for the whole 3 days? Plus all of the arrangement and entertaining the hundreds and thousands of guests?

After the party, both family would use the money from the guests to pay back for all the arrangement such as the cooking, the make up, the store, music and other things. Then the rest of the money is called “profit” will be given to the new marriage couple. This mean, they have to attend most of their guests’ wedding or other celebration and it will be count as a “pay back” and it must be at least a few dollars more than what they paid on your wedding.

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