The Khmer Noodle has a folkloric history, in which it features in the story of a historic scholar named Thun Chey. Some versions of his story suggest that Thun Chey introduced noodle-making to China by selling Khmer Noodles. In contemporary Cambodia, Khmer Noodle is preferred for breakfast and snacks between lunch and dinners. Moreover, it is traditionally prepared and served during ceremonies, including funeral ceremony. It is also considered a social food because it is cooked while other family members gather vegetables or are otherwise engaged in processing the noodles. It is not considered a main dishes for Cambodia. The Khmer Noodle is primarily enjoyed during the rainy season when fish, vegetables, and wild plants are in abundance.

Ingredients:

1000g Fresh Khmer Noodle
300g Freshwater fish (e.g. catfish)
400g Coconut Milk
100g Prahok (fermented fish paste) – deboned
100g Palm sugar paste
1 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Fish Sauce

Kroeung (mixed spices and herbs) ~ 250g

100g lemongrass, bulb and leaf garlic
4 cloves 10g fresh fingerroot
10g fresh turmeric
5g fresh galangal root
4 leaves kaffir lime leaf
100g roasted peanuts

Instructions:

1. Boil the fish for 10 minutes then take it out, remove the skin and allow to cool before crumbling it into small pieces. Discard the water.
2. Pound the Kroeung in a mortar until the achieves a mostly smooth, pasty texture.
3. Boil the coconut milk for 5 minutes, add the prahok and stir until integrated.
4. Add to the coconut milk mixture the kroeung,
5. palm sugar, fish sauce salt, peanuts, and cooked fish crumbles. Allow the sauce to boil until aromatic.
6. Taste the sauce and adapt the flavor with additional fish sauce and palm sugar to achieve preferred taste. Serve with finely sliced chilis if spiciness if desired.

Assembly:

Carefully wash all vegetables and process into bite-size pieces suitable to be eaten by spoon and chopstick.

In a soup bowl, place a sampling of vegetables and a suitable portion of Khmer noodle. Ladle the sauce over the noodles until the liquid is visible above the vegetables.

Eat with a spoon and chopsticks. Optionally season with chili powder.

Fresh vegetable medley, up to 2kg

• Banana blossoms (tray-yaung chek), sliced thinly
• Cucumber, julienned
• Saw-tooth coriander (ronha), chopped
• Thai basil (nung vong), chopped
• Mint (angkam), de-stemmed chopped
• Fishwort (chi poel trey), chopped
• Asian coriander (chee pong tea kon),
  de-stemmed
• Water lily stems (prolut), chipped finely
• Water hyacinth flowers (pkha komplouk),
  de-stemmed
• Sesbania yellow flowers (pkha sngou),
  de-stemmed
• Bean sprouts (sundaik b’doh)
• Long bean (sundaik kua), chopped finely
• Mater celery (plouv kongkaip), whole
• River tamarind Leucaena (khtum tehs), cut

Wild vegetables

• Cardamom leaf (troit Kravanh), whole
• Mempat leaves (sluk longean), whole
• Mango-pine leaves – barringtonia
• acutangula (druoy veang), whole
• Cha Houy Flowers (pkha krochon andout),