Following yet again a great find on Tripadvisor we went for a cooking class today which was held by a local Cambodian chef. We were able to have a look into a Cambodian village to see how the locals there live (which was a little bit sad to be honest. The farmer got some rice as a ‘wage’ to allow us to see his home. It’s nice to see how people live authentically – but not like that).
Afterwards, the friendly hotel staff showed us the place we would cook. It was a beautiful outside area, most ingredients were prepared for us already, so only the fun part of the cooking experience was left for us (I think Joe enjoyed that especially).
These are the ingredients for 1 portion:
- 80g chicken breast
- 30g onion (chopped into small pieces)
- 40g aubergine (=eggplant)
- 40g sweet potato
- 40g cauliflower
- 1 stick of lemongrass
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 shallot
- 1 tsp of sugar
- 1 tsp of fish sauce
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- 1/2 tsp of tumeric powder
- peeling of 1/4 lime
- 1 tsp curry powder
- 150ml coconut cream
- 1 chicken stock cube
- 1 tbsp vegetble oil
- 1/2 cup of water
- 1 tbsp roasted peanuts
And this is how you do it:
- Chop the lime peeling, lemongrass, shallot and garlic finely.
- Place all those ingredients into the mortar and add tumeric, roasted peanuts and the lime peeling to it as well.
- Grate the ingredients long enough for a paste to form (similar consistency to pesto).
- Chop the remaining veg into large cubes.
- Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat and add the spice paste. Cook until the mixture has absorbed the oil. Then add half of the coconut cream.
- Add the chicken and the stock cubes and cook until the chicken is cooked all the way through.
- Add the rest of the coconut cream and the remaining vegetables and cook for about 5 minutes.
- Add the sugar, fish sauce, salt and pepper (and fresh chili if you like).
- Cook the food until all the veg is soft.
Serve with steamed rice and enjoy!
This is by far the best curry I ever had. It is not naturally spicy, which was a big bonus for me.
After this experience Joe and I went to have our first massage – a traditional Khmer full body massage, which was very cool (cheap and not too painful luckily).
This is where we have done the massage (another Tripadvisor tipp, what else!):
And we booked it here (5$ for 1 hour):
And this is the cooking class we have booked (about £20 each):
MAKE IT BAKE IT TAKE IT 