This modern beef lok lak recipe delivers a delicious classic Cambodian pepper beef dish, prepared traditionally with Kampot pepper, but presented in a more contemporary form. This local favourite, which for many Cambodians is their national dish, was one of the inspirations for the creative Cambodian canapés that we concocted for a spread of finger food for New Year’s Eve.
This beef lok lak recipe makes another popular Cambodian dish that served as inspiration for one of the creative Cambodian canapés we created for a New Year’s Eve spread some years ago. While the presentation of this dish was modern for our canapés, the recipe makes an authentic traditional Cambodian dish, albeit one whose provenance is often debated.
It’s believed that Cambodia’s beef lok lak is of Vietnamese origin as there’s a near-identical Vietnamese dish called thit bo luc lac. The Vietnamese dish has virtually the same name, which Vietnamese chefs translate to ‘shaking beef’, because the cook has to shake the wok or pan back and forth to evenly sear the beef.
It’s thought by some that the French, who colonised Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, and popularised beef, could have been responsible for beef lok lak travelling to Cambodia with the Vietnamese staff who worked for the French colonial administrators.
Lara, who has been investigating the subject as part of a longer-term research project on Cambodia’s culinary history, is still searching for evidence of that, and while it’s certainly a possibility if not a probability, she believes the dish might have an even longer history in Cambodia.
If you’re interested in culinary history, particularly that of Cambodia and Southeast Asia, please check out the epic Cambodian cookbook and culinary history research project we’ve been working on for the last ten years. The cookbook documents recipes by Cambodian cooks from around the country and shares their stories, portraits and kitchens, while the culinary history will tell the long rich story of Cambodian food for the first time.
Beef Lok Lak Recipe – Traditional Cambodian Pepper Beef with Kampot Pepper
Over the years Cambodian chefs have told us that they believe beef lok lak arrived here when the Vietnamese occupied Cambodia for a decade after Vietnam’s December 1978 invasion, which resulted in the Vietnamese ousting the brutal Khmer Rouge regime from power.
However, we know Khmer-Americans whose families left Cambodia in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before the Khmer Rouge arrived in the capital Phnom Penh in April 1974, who claim that their families took the dish with them to the USA and have been cooking it ever since.
Beef lok lak could have been brought to Cambodia by the Vietnamese in the 19th century during Vietnam’s 34-year colonisation of Cambodia from 1834 until Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1867.
Or the dish could have been created with during ‘the French century’ as the colonial period is often called. With a side of potato fries, as beef lok lak is popularly served, Cambodia’s pepper beef isn’t so far removed from the French steak frites, a sliced pan-seared steak with potato fries – minus the Bernaise sauce or garlic herb butter. But history is longer and more complicated than that.
We shouldn’t forget that the area we now know as Central and Southern Vietnam were part of Cambodia for over 800 years. When the French offered to protect Cambodia from its neighbours Vietnam and Siam (now Thailand), because Siam had occupied parts of Cambodia, including Siem Reap and Battambang, as part of that deal Cambodia was forced to give up some of its southeast region.
As a result, Cambodia lost Prey Nokor (which would become Saigon), the Mekong Delta and Tay Ninh, which had been part of the Khmer Empire for over 800 years. Although Central and Southern Vietnam had been part of Cambodia from as early as 500BC, when they were part of the Khmer-speaking Kingdom of Funan.
Interestingly, Funan’s port Oc Eo was on the international maritime trade routes that connected Han China with the Roman Empire. While Funan and the Kingdom of Chenla and Khmer Empire that followed were influenced by India, we know from Chinese annals that Chinese emissaries, traders and merchants had been travelling to and spending long periods of time here between journeys. Some stayed on and married Khmer women.
We know from the detailed bas-reliefs on the Bayon temple walls that the Khmer were already stir-frying, as well as barbecuing, steaming and stewing. We know from the journal of the Chinese emissary Zhou Daguan who was at Angkor for a year in 1296 that wild pepper grew here.
Daguan also told us that the Khmer raised cattle and hunted deer (which we can also see on the bas-reliefs), and venison was eaten. Interestingly, although it is technical illegal to kill wild deer now, Cambodians eat a venison lok lak in the countryside, especially near Phnom Kulen.
Our beef lok lak recipe could well have been brought to the land that we now know as Cambodia and Vietnam by the Chinese as there are numerous black pepper beef stir-fry dishes from China, for instance, in Fujian, and Guangdong and Cantonese cuisines.
A similar black pepper stir-fry from Guangdong lists the same ingredients that are in this beef lok lak recipe, with the addition of ginger and onion, while a Cantonese dish also boasts the same ingredients as my beef lok lak recipe, as well as bell pepper, onion and sesame oil.
The first Chinese to settle in Cambodia during the Khmer Empire (802-1431) were Hokkien speaking peoples from Fujian province. Further waves arrived at the end of the 17th century (Cantonese and Hainanese); during the French protectorate period (Hokkien and Cantonese from Guangdong); and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries before and after the French (Hakka and Teochew from southern Fujian).
With the origins of our beef lok lak recipe being so contested, I prefer to call it a Cambodian dish, which suggests that it could have been influenced by the culinary heritage of Cambodians other than Khmer, such as Cambodian-Chinese, whereas Khmer suggests it is indigenous. Lara has evidence that suggests it’s even older and is a Khmer dish, but she’s saving that for our book.
Regardless of where this beef lok lak recipe originally came from, it’s incredibly delicious. Once reserved for special occasions, beef lok lak is now eaten both in the home and at modest eateries, generally during the day, for a late breakfast, lunch or a snack.
Beef lok lak is typically served on lettuce with green tomatoes on the side, and is always eaten with rice, which is served in a separate bowl or on the same plate. Potato fries are another popular side, sometimes served on the same plate. Cooks will also slide an optional soft fried egg on top so that when you break the egg the yolk runs through the cubes of meat.
You can order very good Kampot Pepper online at Amazon.
Notes on Presentation of Modern Beef Lok Lak
I haven’t stipulated how you should present the dish in my beef lok lak recipe but it’s traditionally served on the plate or on a bed of lettuce or watercress at good restaurants, such as Mahob Khmer in Siem Reap. Thick slices of crunchy green tomatoes are arranged around the beef or to the side of the meat.
A runny fried egg is often plopped on top of the beef pieces and sometimes French fries will be served on the side. Evidence of the French connection or a twist to the dish to please hungry foreign travellers?
For our more contemporary presentation of the beef lok lak for our spread of creative Cambodian canapés, we serve neat pieces of beef individually on single slices of green tomato. I spoon a little of the peppery juices over the beef and tomato and pop a soft fried quail egg on top of each.
A note: Lara has undertaken the research I’ve incorporated above for the Cambodian cookbook and culinary history we are working on and has all sources. Please don’t plagiarise this material. Get in touch in the comments below or by email if you’d like more information, permission to quote her or would like to share your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you.
Beef Lok Lak Recipe
Ingredients
- 600 g beef fillet - cubed
- 2 tbsp white sugar
- 2 tbsp black Kampot pepper - crushed
- 2½ tbsp garlic - crushed
- 5 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1½ tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 tbsp Chinese rice wine
- 1 tbsp dark soy
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
DIPPING SAUCE
- 1 fresh lime
- 1 tsp black Kampot pepper - ground
- 1 tsp sea salt
Instructions
- Combine the beef with the sugar, half of the pepper, half of the garlic, 2/3 of the oyster sauce and light soy sauce, salt and cornstarch. Mix thoroughly and marinate for at least an hour in the fridge.
- After marinating, remove the mixture from the fridge and let it get to room temperature.
- Add the oil to a hot pan, and add the beef mixture. Stir fry until medium rare. Remove the mixture from the pan and deglaze the pan with the rice wine until reduced.
- Add the remaining garlic fry until translucent. Add the beef again and add the remaining oyster sauce, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and pepper.
- Cook to your liking. We generally like ours medium rare if we're using the best quality beef.
- The sauce should be thick.
- Serve on a plate with thick slices of green tomatoes on the side.
- Quarter the lime, put some of the ground Kampot black pepper and sea salt into a small side dish, squeeze the juice onto the pepper, combine, and taste. Add more salt or pepper, as you like.
- Serve this dipping sauce (tek merec) on the side. Meat can be dipped into the bowl or it can be poured over the beef.
Nutrition
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make our beef lok lak recipe, whether in its traditional or modern form. We’d also love to hear your thoughts on the origins of beef lok lak.
Nice recipe, Terence. I found it easy to follow (and I rarely cook); its succinct yet it does not leave out any helpful information. Any alternatives for Chinese rice wine though? Thanks!
Glad you liked the recipe, Cathie. You can substitute white grape juice if you want non-alcoholic, or use a dry sherry.
Cheers,
T
This dish had just the right amount of zing and I found the green tomatoes really helped balance it out.
Can this same sauce be used for other meats?
Hi Felicia, the green tomatoes are such a great contrast, aren’t they? I’ve just been in Vietnam and there they have a similar dish, and they also serve the pepper, salt and lime sauce with fried tofu, which works really well. I imagine that a lighter version might also work well with other kinds of seafood, such as calamari/squid, prawns and fish. If you try it, we’d love to hear how it turns out.
Hi Terence and Lara,
I asked an older family member in their 80s about Lok Lak and they said they didn’t learn about the dish until after immigrating to the U.S. in the late 80s/early 90s from other Cambodians. Before they were introduced to Lok Lak, they knew of a different dish called Salade Bastille (I don’t know if they actually spelt it this way, but I’m spelling it the way it’s pronounced) from their childhood in the late 40s/early 50s and it is similar to Lok Lak. Large chucks of marinated beef is pan-fried and then placed on a bed of lettuce, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. The lime, salt and black pepper dressing is poured over the beef salad. People would rip off a bit of the beef, pick it up with some lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers to eat.
Lok Lak is derived from the Vietnamese Luc Lac, but I read on a Vietnamese cooking blog that the words Luc Lac is likely an onomatopoeia for the shaking sound the beef makes in the wok. Since stir-fry was already a known and popular cooking technique (I believe xào is the Vietnamese word for stir-fry), I’m curious as to why the dish itself wasn’t called a stir-fry black pepper beef. And Salade Bastille? I searched and can’t find a French dish by that name.
Hi Soriya, so lovely to hear from you and to read this. I’m assuming your older family member was from Phnom Penh? And French-speaking, so well educated?
I haven’t heard of salade bastille but I know of the French salad traditionally eaten on Bastille Day called salade canaille, literally ‘scoundrel’ salad or an uncivilised salad, which apparently dates to the 19th century. It’s essentially an improved salad platter or ‘composed salad’ from the South of France, specifically Provence, and it’s basically anything goes – it could be beef, chicken or tuna for example, arranged with various vegetables or salad ingredients plucked from the garden or bought from the farmer’s market.
A recipe from a French cookbook by Richard Olney, the American expat food writer who lived in Provence most of his life, incorporates pot-au-feu (beef pot roast). I can easily imagine the wife of a French colonial administrator from the south of France teaching their Khmer or Vietnamese cook to prepare the dish and see how it could transform into the salad your family member described. I’m going to ask my Cambodian friends, especially French-Cambodian friends, about ‘salade Bastille’. I’ll leave an update here when I learn something.
You’re right about the Vietnamese explanation for ‘luc lac’, however, I actually made a bit of a breakthrough on the history of the usage of ‘lok lak’ in Khmer. But I’m saving it for our Cambodia cookbook and culinary history, as so much of my original research gets plagiarised. When the book is published, I will definitely share it with you. I was so shocked.
In terms of names of dishes, one thing I’ve found in my research is that outside the restaurant industry and publishing there are no canonised names for dishes in the way there are with, say, French cuisine. For example, if you go to a village and chat to a couple of old ladies about a ‘chicken soup’, they might just call it a ‘chicken soup’ (in Khmer), even though one chicken soup has three key ingredients and another chicken soup has a handful of completely different ingredients. There’s no desire to distinguish the soup from another with more description, whether it’s ingredients or a technique.
Speaking of technique, another thing I find interesting about lok lak is that some cooks and chefs in Cambodia use a wok and others use a fry pan to cook the dish. For me, the wok speaks to an Asian heritage and the frying pan to European, but these days I think whether a Cambodian cook uses a wok or frying pan is just a matter of personal preference.
Thanks again for taking the time to drop by and share this – please do let me know if you find out more.
Hi Lara,
I apologize, I was way off about the name of the dish. After your reply, I called and asked about “Salade Bastille” and they were confused. After I described the dish how it was explained to me before, they said it was called Boeuf Steak Salade. The relative who first learned about this dish passed away over 10 years ago. They were originally from Stung Treng, served in the army during French colonial and stationed further up north. The relative who is still alive and now in their mid 80s had visited this relative where they were stationed when they were a child (around 10 years old) and that’s where they learned about the dish. Khmer people in the area saw the French eating beef salad and started making this dish most likely based on their own interpretation. It’s unknown if the French themselves called it Boeuf Steak Salade or if the Khmer in the area came up with the name.
It’s possible that this dish never spread to other parts of the country, but a Cambodian-American YouTuber who uploads cooking videos said they had Lok Lak in Lowell, MA where they pan fried (deep fried) the marinated beef instead of stir frying it. From their channel, I recently learned about Nom Banh Chok Kampot (the wife is from Kampot). It’s prepared with what they call Tuk Trey Koh Kong and reduced coconut milk. The Tuk Trey Koh Kong is made with equal parts lime juice, sugar and fish sauce and includes crushed garlic and chili peppers. Somewhat similar to the Vietnamese Bun Cha, but instead of meatballs, it’s eaten with pounded dried shrimp.
I’m learning about Cambodian dishes I’ve never heard of before and different ways of making a dish from people whose family grew up in different regions through that forum. Some dishes are altered to where it’s unrecognizable and the creator will say that’s how their family made it which makes it difficult to track the history and culinary tradition. I’m really looking forward to your book!
Hi Soriya
My turn to apologise, I overlooked this comment, sorry. ‘Boeuf steak salade’ makes sense – and I love hearing these stories!!! I so wish there were more stories documented from that generation. I wish someone in the USA-Canada or Australia-NZ would create a database of crowd-sourced stories. A site where people could go and easily submit stories and tag them so they were searchable. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Sometimes beef lok lak is served in Cambodia more like a salad, on a bed of lettuce with lots of thick slices of green or red tomatoes, so the salad is more of a salad. At other times, it’s more like a garnish, especially when it’s served with fries, when it’s more like the French dish of steak frites, but with a pepper sauce instead of a Bernaise sauce.
Interestingly when I just Googled ‘French boeuf steak salade’ – and it’s probably because I’m in Australia at my mum’s at the moment – this recipe from a New Zealand cooking magazine came up for a Parisian beef salad: https://dish.co.nz/recipes/salade-de-boeuf-a-la-parisienne-cold-beef-salad/
Look at that presentation – it’s in the style of those French ‘composed salads’ like Nicoise that I mentioned in my last reply to you. If those chopped boiled eggs were removed, it’s actually more like the presentation of Cambodian beef salads in the Cambodian diasporas in the USA and Australia that I see on Facebook, than it is like any beef salad I see in Cambodia.
I’ve never seen Cambodians in Cambodia serve the huge slices of beef they serve in the diasporas, nor serve as much beef on one plate as I see on social media. Maybe wealthier Cambodians in Phnom Penh do at home if they’re showing off but most Cambodians are more frugal when it comes to the protein. Quality beef is imported and expensive; the local beef is tough so needs to be marinated and cooked.
The only time I see rare beef served in Camabodia is in a kuy teav, which it’s going to cook in, and when it comes to salad it’s in p’lear sach ko, which, at a good restaurant, is often made with Australian beef. Chef Sothea of Lum Orng farm to table restaurant does a wonderful one with plenty of finely sliced lemongrass on top.
I do think the difference in whether a Cambodian pan-fries or wok-fries – whether it’s lok lak or any dish – comes down to culinary heritage and how they’ve learnt to cook. I have a Cambodian friend who is half Khmer on one parent’s side and half Cambodian-Chinese on the other side and they definitely cook and eat food from both culinary heritages, pan-frying some things, wok-frying others. A chef I know in Siem Reap pan-fries his lok lak and also uses butter, so it’s definitely more like a French braise. That could be his French training as a chef; he started out at the Sofitel.
The beef salad in Cambodia looks nothing like the very extravagant beef salads that my Khmer-American friends make and share photos of on social media, nor the ‘Thai’/’Vietnamese’ style beef salads I see online and in food magazines in Australia. I think a lot of those should be called Thai/Vietnamese ‘inspired’ or ‘style’ because sometimes the flavours are spot on but they just look different to how they do in Southeast Asia. I think celebrity chefs and food media are responsible for that difference.
Nom banh chok Kampot is so lovely – so creamy and served cold rather than room temperature. And, yes, it’s served with pounded dried shrimp but sometimes also fresh shrimp and nearly always with crunchy pork skin. It’s not really like bun cha, so maybe they’ve been a bit creative there. And it’s normally served with the Kampot teuk trey of garlic, fish sauce, lime, palm sugar, and chilli (which is heavier on the garlic and lighter on the chillies) with coconut cream. Do you think the YouTube couple are confusing their sauce names?
Teuk trey Koh Kong is very heavy on the red chillies – it’s more like a Thai sweet chilli sauce only not as sweet. Terence makes Thai sweet chilli sauce at home, but I just buy tuk trey Koh Kong from a seafood seller at Psar Leu, as it’s so good and it’s only $1 a bottle. We couldn’t make it for so little. It’s still homemade by someone – as it’s sold in recycled water bottles. I prefer it to the Thai sweet chilli sauce as it’s better balanced, not overly sweet, but a little more sour and has more tang. Which sauce do you think the YouTube couple are making? Could they have confused the names?
Re this: “Some dishes are altered to where it’s unrecognizable and the creator will say that’s how their family made it which makes it difficult to track the history and culinary tradition.” I hear you!!! That’s why I always wanted to acknowledge the source of dishes and say this is how Mr Rithy from Wat Kor village near Battambang marinates his beef skewers or this herbaceous vibrant green nom banh chok recipe from Pradak is from Mrs Huot who uses green leaves and herbs she’s foraged from her own garden, that of her neighbours and her village. Because there are so many differences and variations because cooks are resourceful and creative and develop their own ‘recipes’ — even if they’re unwritten and are remembered. I always get a little irritated when I see people on forums say something is not done one way because their family did it another way. There’s often no right or wrong way because it’s not a cuisine that has been documented and has rules, like French cuisine, although older cooks tend to have strong opinions about how dishes should be cooked compared to the younger generation.
When are you coming to Cambodia?
Hi Lara,
Lok lak served on a bed of lettuce with sliced tomatoes and cucumbers is how my family prepares it and every other Cambodians we know in the East Coast of the U.S. We wrap the beef, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers in the lettuce and dip it in the black pepper sauce. I’ve also seen it served this way in videos featuring Cham villages in Cambodia.
I can see how someone will put a different spin on a dish that’s inspired by their cultural heritage and culinary training. I think most Cambodians, especially the older generation, mainly worry about influences from other countries and how that could absorb Khmer culture. That’s why every few decades you’ll see a push to promote and protect Khmer culture. It’s a cycle that’s been happening since before the time of the French Protectorate.
And on the topic of cultural preservation, I wanted to share a story about a chef’s vision of Khmer food, imagining its evolution if the KR regime never happened. You can read about it and watch the special on PBS.org. It’s titled Ethan Lim: Cambodian Futures. As for the YouTube couple, I’m not sure if they’ve mistaken the sauce for another. She omitted the garlic from the sauce because she has an aversion to garlic and said the rest of the ingredients were what they had on hand. Their channel name is Komlos Phila. It’s more of a family vlog and they mainly speak Khmer. The video about nom banh chok Kampot was published in February.
Going back to written recipes, I believe the first Cambodian cookbook was published in 1960 by Princess Norodom Rasmi Sobbhana, but I suspect recipes prepared for the royal family were written down well before then, even if they weren’t published and shared with the public. France holds quite a bit of historical documents from Cambodia, and it would not surprise me if someone came across a written recipe from the 19th century or even earlier. A few years ago, a Yale professor, Ben Kiernan, was in France doing his research for a Cambodian history book he’s writing and uncovered written communications in Khmer plotting a rebellion during the 1880s. Another source could be from neighboring countries. I read a blog (Google translated Thai to English) by a Thai archeologist name Kris Lualamai who wrote about the possible origin of Tom Yum soup. Both Kris Lualamai and Chef Nooror Somany Steppe mentions a dish found in a cookbook published in 1908 by Thanpuying Plian Phasakornwong called Ma Krua Huapa. The dish is called tom yam khaman (Cambodian tom yam) or kang nok mo (curry outside the pot).
I visited Cambodia for the first time several years ago and I’ve been reluctant to return due to a few incidents with the immigration officers at the Phnom Penh airport and Vietnam border. I think you may have heard about it. It’s affected Khmers visiting from overseas for decades and in recent years, East/SE Asian tourists, mostly from China. It’s a shame because I would visit Cambodia every year, or every other year, even if it was just a couple of weeks. Most of my family aren’t as bothered as I am and often visits Cambodia. They were there last year and just this past January. Family friends often visits Cambodia as well. Every time someone plans a trip, they’re raising money to donate school supplies, rice, etc. I just donated to a family friend who is visiting in April, and they’re going to purchase and distribute 50kg bags of rice, fish sauce, soy sauce, dry fish/meats to communities in rural areas. Until officials crack down on low level corruption, I’ll vicariously experience Cambodia through family and friends.
Hi Soriya
Lovely to hear from you again. Yes, you’re right re your insight on the Cham – I’ve made a couple of research breakthroughs on charting the journey of dishes with the Chams, which I can’t wait to share. It’s increasingly hard to try Cham dishes as there’s very little contact between Buddhist Khmer and Cham Muslims and very few Cham Muslim restaurants here in Cambodia. But whenever we visit Cham villages we interrogate the women about their food – the women are often hilarious actually. We’ve had a lot of fun talking food and other things!
I do understand why the older generation would be concerned about loss of Khmer culture but I don’t think they have anything to worry about. Sure, we’ve seen changes since we moved here in 2013 – but they’ve mainly been economic and have been positive changes. Like any youths around the world, young people have their obsessions with Korean pop music, Thai movies and the lily-white skin of Chinese actresses, and when it comes to food, the salmon trend continues apace in Siem Reap and in Phnom Penh it’s foreign food, especially Italian, Korean and Japanese, but I think that’s natural. I do believe the vast majority of Cambodians still prefer to eat Cambodian food and are very proud of their cuisine, culture and the long rich history that their cultural and national identity is rooted in. There are ongoing efforts in Cambodia to promote Khmer culture, which is great, especially for young people, but I don’t think there’s reason to be concerned. While things are changing fast in the capital, Cambodia remains predominantly rural, where centuries-old traditions are still maintained and ancient stories still shared as if they happened yesterday.
Yes, I saw the Ethan Lim documentary and have read interviews with him before in Eater and the like. What the food might have been like had the KR period not happened is a conversation I’ve had with many of our best Cambodian chefs here in Cambodia. There are a lot of great chefs doing really interesting things with Cambodian food here, yet at the same time preserving dishes and techniques while introducing the food to new audiences/eaters. Have you read some of our stories and the interviews I’ve done? I usually publish them on our site a few years after they’ve published elsewhere. I’ll share a few links below and that will take you to other links.
Yes, you’re right about Princess Norodom Rasmi Sobbhana’s cookbook. Have you seen the republished version? It’s very interesting for its foreign influences, especially French; its use of French, Vietnamese and Thai words, and its use of canned food as ingredients. It’s not at all what I expected. I’ve tried to cook from it but its challenging for a number of reasons. My Cambodian friends, especially those from Siem Reap and Battambang find it baffling. They ate very differently in the palace to how the rest of Cambodia ate, and that’s reflected in the food of a few restaurants in Phnom Penh ran by elite Cambodians with royal connections. I once criticized a very gentle prahok that I ate, as it had no flavour, and no taste of prahok. There was a long table of staff from foreign embassies and the UN so I naturally assumed they’d dumbed it down for the foreigners, but I was rebuked by the owner who told me that the food of the elites was more subtle in flavour and therefore better and was very disparaging of both the more intensely flavoured food of the countryside that I prefer, and of me personally if that food is what I’ve developed my taste and knowledge upon. It was an interesting exchange!
And, yes, we have to thank the French for saving a lot of those archives. I’ve dug up some really enlightening papers that have helped my research, such as records of Cambodian products that were exported and who they were selling them to that was surprising.
I know the Thanpuying Plian Phasakornwong cookbook. A few of my chef friends in Bangkok cook from it a lot – our friend David Thompson who is a Thai food scholar has based whole menus around recipes from that book. I also know Chef Nooror and she’s lovely and really knows her stuff. I remember reading a story about her tom yam kung recipe – it was on the Thai Michelin guide site – and I remember it said the dish’s origins were unknown (!!) even after saying that the recipe was called tom yam khaman or Cambodian tom yam in the cookbook. But that’s so typical. Thais also deny that Ayutthaya was Khmer before Thai.
What a lot of people forget or perhaps don’t realize was how close the Cambodian and Thai royals were – there were palaces for the Cambodian royals in Bangkok (and they’re still there if now privately owned) – and how many of those famous Thai princesses and concubines were Khmer and Mon. There’s bound to be culinary influence and exchanges within those families that in those days then filtered down through the kitchens of elites and pots of their servants who cooked their food and ended up on their tables and mats. My husband and I have compared so many Cambodian and Thai recipes and sometimes it’s just one or two or three ingredients that distinguish one from the other.
People also forget or, again, perhaps don’t realize how many Khmer communities in Bangkok – along with Lao, Vietnamese, Burmese, Malays etc – and that the vast majority had originally been taken there as slaves. It was Khmer and Lao artisans who built all those beautiful gilded pagodas in Bangkok. Again, there was bound to be culinary exchanges. All those people cooked their own food, and while those guys were building temples their wives were probably cooking and selling food in a market or on the street to make a little extra money.
I remember coming across a declassified CIA report from the 1970s many years ago about the Khmer in Northeast Thailand and it essentially said that the lower NE was Khmer and upper NE was Lao and that there were very few actual Thais there, that the region was cut off from Northern Thailand due to its geography and lack of communications infrastructure. That explains why Isaan food is essentially the same as Cambodian food – except the fiery curries, but remove those or use less and it’s essentially Cambodian food. The discovery of that report took me down a rabbit hole and really motivated me to think more laterally and imaginatively when it came to looking for research sources.
I’m so sorry to hear about your immigration/border experiences. I haven’t heard about any problems actually but I’ll do some Googling. I’m pleased your family and friends get back and that they’re helping poorer Cambodians. Please let me know if you come visit again and we can go eat together – if we stop ourselves chatting about Cambodian food and history!!!
I’d love to know your thoughts – and the thoughts of older members of your family or older friends – on the naming of nom pachok/nom banh chok. As you know everyone in Cambodia uses nom banh chok or nom banhchok these days but Khmer Americans and Khmer Australians whose ancestors left before/during/after the KR use nom pachok. Whenever I’ve asked Cambodians in Cambodia about this over the years – and I ask absolutely everyone every chance I get – they’ve said ‘pachok’ is slang/wrong/Khmer-American and everyone has all kinds of different definitions for ‘banh chok/banhchok’. But you know that ‘b’ and ‘p’ have often been used interchangeably over many centuries. I think ‘pachok’ was correct and perhaps even ‘nom pa chok’ and ‘pachok’ became ‘banhchok/banh chok’ during the Vietnamese decade. I’ve just found a Cambodian expert in Khmer epigraphy who has written extensively on Khmer names that changed over time due to foreign influence – Thai, French and Vietnamese influence mainly – and I’ve reached out to him for his opinion.
Thanks again for dropping by!