Instant karko’s gonna get you

Samla Karko

It is sometimes amusing to uphold the myth that I’m leading a fantastically unattainable food lifestyle: up at the crack of dawn to scour Cambodia’s markets for the rarest ingredients, plotting my meals in advance. But it is a myth. I hate the morning and when I’m feeling lazy, Cambodia’s improving supermarkets fill the gap. Lucky for me, Lucky Supermarket has recently introduced packaged fresh ingredient kits for Cambodia’s favourite foods: a few offal and sour soups, tom yam, stuffed bitter melon, and something that I rarely cook myself, samlor karko.

Samlor karko (literally, “stirring soup”) is made in infinite variations depending on the availability of ingredients. It ranges from watery broth to a chunky stew, but the core components are prahok (fermented fish paste); a mix of Cambodia’s more common vegetables: pumpkin, green papaya, green jackfruit, green banana, snake beans, eggplant; a lemongrass heavy spice paste (kroueng); and some random, esoteric leaves that I can’t regularly identify. These things need some serious stirring. I’ve seen versions with every meat imaginable, but tend to prefer pork or chicken.

Samla Karko

On disengaging the vegies from the cling wrap and polystyrene tray, the Lucky kit seemed a little short on pumpkin and green jackfruit for my liking. No green banana, for which I don’t care; no eggplant. The leafy greenery is mrum leaf (Moringa oleifera) , and the baggies contain kroueng and ground roasted rice.

To make from scratch, if you’re slightly less lazy:

250 grams of pork ribs
1 tbsp prahok
500 grams of vegetables – any mix of green papaya, green banana, green jackfruit sliced thinly; small eggplant or pea eggplant, pumpkin in chunks; snake beans cut into short lengths.
2 small chillies, chopped
6 cups of water

30 grams of lemongrass leaf, 10 grams of lemongrass stem
1 tbsp of krachai
a small piece of fresh turmeric
4 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 tbsp of oil
2 tbsp of ground roasted rice
2 tbsp of palm sugar
2 tbsp of fish sauce
salt to taste

1 cup mrum leaf (Moringa oleifera)

Make the kroueng:

Slice the lemongrass leaf very finely, roughly cut the rhizome, turmeric and garlic, then pound with a mortar and pestle to a paste.

Get your soup on:

Cut the pork ribs into bite-size chunks with a cleaver (or get your butcher to do it for you).

Fry the kroueng and prahok in oil until the oil turns yellowish-green. Add the ribs and brown quietly, taking care not to burn the kroueng.

Add a cup of water, palm sugar, vegetables, and chillies, stirring intermittently for about 15 minutes. Stir in the ground roasted rice powder.

Add the other 5 cups of water, bring to a solid boil. Give the vegies a poke to see if they’re done. Add fish sauce, salt to taste. Add more sugar if necessary.

Add mrum leaf and remove from heat. Serve immediately.

For a vegie version (samla karko sap): Omit anything flavoursome, replace with vegetable-based substitute. Sorry, I meant to say “replace meats with firm tofu or textured vegetable protein, and fish sauce with vege-substitute fish sauce”.

Lucky Supermarket Samla Karko kit (labelled “karkou”): 1000 riel ($US0.25) with about a dollar worth of pre-cut pork ribs.

Cheers to Austin for pointing out the Souper Challenge Blog Event

12 thoughts on “Instant karko’s gonna get you”

  1. Really interesting recipe; it involves ingredients available here in Thailand, but combines them in a way quite unlike any Thai dish I’ve ever seen. I’ll have try this one.

    Any idea what mrum leaf is called in Thai? And what is the rhizome you mention?

  2. Sorry – poor editing on my part. The mrum is Moringa oleifera – in Thai you get a choice of:

    กาแน้งเดิง Ka naeng doeng
    มะค้อนก้อม Ma khon kom
    มะรุม Ma rum (bean / pod)
    ผักอีฮึม Phak i huem
    ผักอีฮุม Phak i hum

    according to http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Moringa.html

    The rhizome is krachai.

  3. Geez, Phil, how did you do that? I can read the Thai but am not familiar with any of the names–they appear to be regional dialect. I do, however, know krachai. Cheers!

  4. Have you had beef karko in Kampot? It is the best…but I’m wondering if it isn’t a completely different variety than this.

  5. For Melissa, don’t confuse karko and kâ ko, beef and palm sugar soup, sometime made with star anis and served with rice, vermicelli or bread.

  6. Hi. For the first time I tried a recipe I found WITHOUT adding or taking ANYTHING out, and this absolutely was delicious!! Thank you for the recipe! My husband thanks you too! Now if only I can find one for samlor machew sach ko….

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