Comments on: Fish Amok (Amok Trei)

By: Running Amok « It's a Wanderlust Life

Running Amok « It's a Wanderlust Life — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 08:38:12 +0000

[...] as it will characterize our life for the next 2 – 3 months! But ever more importantly, fish amok is one of the national dishes of Cambodia. It’s a curry that is steamed in a banana leaf [...]

By: jm

jm — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:10:23 +0000

I had it 5 days in a row when i was in cambodia. Its the best dish in the world ever in the universe. I want some now !!!!!

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 01:44:31 +0000

Food for the God’s………….and its the Lemon Grass that makes it so special.

I have eaten it on numerous visits to Cambodia and I make it at home in Australia. Everyone loves it.

By: Two Dragons, Siem Reap « a girl’s eating adventures

Two Dragons, Siem Reap « a girl’s eating adventures — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 06:43:10 +0000

[...] politikus made a better choice i did in ordering amok, the steamed fish curry which is a traditional khmer dish. it came in an hollowed out coconut, which was more for decorative than taste purposes. to me, amok tasted somewhat like thai green curry, only that fish was used instead of other meats. it has copious amounts of coconut milk though, so it is very rich tasting. loved the use of sliced kaffir lime leaves and peanuts in the gravy. it wasn’t spicy at all. apparently, there are other ways to serve amok, ala otak-otak manner, custard-like, in banana leaf cups. [...]

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 01:25:33 +0000

Gutbomb: fo’ shizzle, my nizzle.

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 00:43:22 +0000

I originally wrote the recipe for some friends in Australia: so chances of getting krachai and prahok were pretty low (at least, without some serious hunting). I’ll post a much better, less barang-ised amok soon. cheers.

By: gutbomb

gutbomb — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 07:49:22 +0000

Say hello to my little friend the fifth taste

I would just like to point out to Jo “Global defender of Khmer recipes” and to Phil (creator of possibly the most up beat and positive Cambodian Blog on the internet) that you are both missing the vital ingredient, the salt of life, the white crystal of flavour, the securer of Ministerial votes (in smaller villages anyway), the big M, the Mono, the Glu that binds all Amoks, M to the S to the G i Izzy.

“MSG”

http://www.ajinomoto.com/social/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate

Case in point

http://tools.wikimedia.de/sixdeg/index.jsp?from=MSG&to=Khmer+cuisine

sorry its Sunday and I am bored……..

By: Jo

Jo — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 05:51:02 +0000

Dear Phil

Please just allow me to be a French bad surrender monkey and give you a lecture about Amok by correcting a few things. If I agree that there is about one recipe of amok per cook in Cambodia there are some rules so you can call you dish amok.

First of all the krachai (in Thai, ktchey in Khmer, Kaempferia pandatura in Latin, zedoary in English) is the most important spice in amok. You shouldn’t advice not to use it or you amok won’t taste much different than Samla kti (and that we don’t want, damned no)

Amok paste is nothing but Khmer yellow curry paste mixed with krachai.

Here is a recipe:
Yellow paste
1 small piece of fresh turmeric
1 small piece of galangal
2 stem of lemongrass (no green on)
4 shallots
2 garlic cloves
2 kaffir leafs
To turn it as amok paste, just add 3 pieces of krachai.

Second weird thing, shrimp paste: ask any Khmer female cook and you’ll see that you should use prahok (I recommend some good prahok trey compliegn 10000 riel/kg if it’s from the year). A small spoon will do, thinly chopped before being used. Kapi! And why not barbecue sauce too???

Chili? Some people use it for amok. Others don’t. What is sure is that is shouldn’t be fresh chili but always dried (fresh chili is only for salad or Thai curry paste.) Just soak them and chop them thinly, using a bit of palm sugar to make a paste.

Amok is always sweet. So trust me, palm sugar, palm sugar, palm sugar…

Amok is amok because it is made with slok gno (a leaf from a tree that doesn’t seem to have a god name in English or French. Morinda Citrifolia in Latin.) It’s available on every local market. The fruit of the tree once ripe has an interesting smell of old spoiled French cheese. The leaf brings a little bit of bitterness and the characteristic taste of Amok. When I go home I usually replace it with Swiss chard green (or spinach at least)

How is your amok going to hold without eggs once you steamed it? If steamed amok is quite popular among expatriated and tourists I would believe that among Khmers the liquid version is the most cooked and ate. The steamed one is originally made to be taken away when people go the rice field.

One last thing. Could we stop decorating amok or soup or whatever with kaffir leafs and chili julienne? Khmer food is delicate and complex enough so it doesn’t have to be ruined with that kind of things. Let’s just leave it to the Thai.

Sorry for that. It had to come out. Have a good day.