Cooking The Books

Back to School

When I was in Cambodia I managed to squeeze in a quick cookery course.  I heard that an expat run restaurant around the corner from my hotel ran one (the only one) in Phnom Penh and even though I was only there for three days I had to give it a go.  We started the day with a trip to the market, which I've already written of here, before heading back to the rather nice roof top kitchen.

Chinese Noodle Restaurant, Monivong Blvd, Phnom Penh

 

I watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain's 'No Reservations' recently (a fine show if you haven't seen it) where he was based in China.  During the show he commented how both the Chinese and Italians knew the importance of a good noodle.  People focus on the sauce but without the right noodle you've got nothing.  I've noticed this at home too, finding that chow mein suddenly starts tasting like the one from the restaurant if you use the fresh yellow noodles and the same goes for noodle soups when you buy the bundles of fresh egg noodles.  It seems fresh is the way to go for Chinese even if where pasta's concerned I'm pretty much dried all the way.

Whilst in Phnom Penh our friend said we had to visit the Chinese Noodle Restaurant as they made all their noodles and dumplings fresh.  Whilst I've eaten and loved freshly made dumplings in London, at Jen Cafe, I wasn't too impressed with the doughy hand made noodles at the same place.  I'm always up for giving a place a chance though so we hopped in a tuk tuk and headed over.

The Markets of Phnom Penh

I love checking out wet markets when I'm abroad.  The sights and smells (especially in tropical conditions) are always overwhelming and they make a refreshing change from the clinical supermarkets of the UK. Coming from a country where meat comes sealed in plastic and stored at near zero temperatures I'm amazed to see pork laying on tables in the heat and people happily buying it. I spoke to a Cambodian chef about this and he said that the only places with refrigeration were the meat processing plants.  Every morning the market sellers collected their meat, left it laying in the heat all day whilst trying to sell it and then at the end of the day any that wasn't sold was returned to the meat processing plants from whence it came.  There it was processed into dumpling filling and so on.  Things to be frozen or cooked immeditaely.  As such none of the meat ever goes off or goes to waste.

It's tricky to know what to say about the markets of Cambodia.  They're bright, smelly, busy and filled with all manner of fairly alien things, along with recognisable stuff too.  So much of it is about these sights and smells though, rather than words on a blog, and whilst I can't replicate the smells for you I did take a fair few shots that are far more interesting than anything I can write about the experience.  Enjoy. 

The slideshow is gives you the photos in a nice big size and if you click on the 'i' then you can see any comments I've made.

Browsable Gallery

Slideshow

Egg Duck Baby (or Balut)

When I found out I was going to Cambodia the first thing that dawned on me was the realisation I was going to have to eat a duck foetus and a tarantula.  Ever since finding out about the thing the Filipinos call the balut I've known that one day the time would come, I don't allow myself not to try things so if ever one crossed my path I was tucking in, whether I liked it or not.  For those that don't know the balut, or egg duck baby as it' translates to from Khmer, is made by allowing a fertilised egg to near the point of hatching before it's boiled, foetus and all, and served as a snack.  I'd read about them on blogs and knew they were common in Cambodia - my time had come.

Our three days in Phnom Penh passed and we'd not seen a single one, even taxi drivers hadn't been able to help, and I thought I was going to have to return having failed in my task.  We flew to Siem Reap though to check out the temples of Angkor and a chat with our airport taxi revealed they were everywhere there.  We checked in and made our way in to town where the street stalls with bowls of white eggs sat atop steamers confirmed that tonight was the night.

A Holiday in Cambodia

Up until 3 weeks ago the only thing Cambodian related I knew anything about was the aforementioned song by the Dead Kennedys.  I’d been told the country was poor and undeveloped but just how much these were true still shocked me.  Whilst there I was told that 60% of the population live on less than a dollar a day and with this including teachers and police corruption is rife, policeman would rather abuse their position than see their own children short of food and teachers will make kids pay to be taught.  I also saw families sleeping on the street, the mum wrapped in a sheet but the young kids just sleeping naked on the concrete in the tropical temperatures.  I think the thing that shocked me most though was the fact that charities recommend HIV positive mums breast-feed their children.  Doing this they run a 1/6 chance of giving their babies the disease but in a country with such a high infant mortality rate these odds are worth risking for the benefits and increased chance of survival the nutrition from breast-feeding gives their babies.

Unsurprisingly witnessing things like this has a profound effect on a lot of people and Cambodia is littered with westerners who have felt compelled to stay behind and try and help out, either joining or creating charitable NGOs.  One such NGO is Friends, an organisation initially set up to help street kids eat and which now has a number of restaurants where the less fortunate Cambodian children are trained in cooking and running restaurants, hopefully altering their futures immensely.