EatingAsia

Skewered in Siem Reap

The ultimate skewer of barbecued beef? Perhaps.

    Around five in the afternoon charcoal smoke begins to rise from dozens of grills, scenting the air all over Siem Reap. Cambodians love a barbecue, it seems -- there's an entire street devoted to restaurants serving up charred protein (chicken, beef, offal, seafood), sides and beer. Locals call it "Khmer Pub Street", after Pub Street, an infamous downtown strip of dance clubs and bars in which young foreign travellers pass their evenings.

    A couple evenings ago we dipped our toe into the local BBQ scene at a corner joint on the non-Pub Street side of the river. Picture it: a middle-aged woman seated on a stool behind a long low grill crowded with skewers of red meat. A packed house every single night, from five-thirty onward. An intoxicating scent -- smoky, sweet, meaty -- that begins to tickle your nose when you're still half a block away.

    The meat on those skewers is local beef and beef liver, marinated in beef stock and perhaps Cambodian palm sugar. The strips of beef are alternated with bits of pork fat to keep the meat moist, and both it and the liver are skewered in such a way that they form waves along the wooden stick rather than lying flat. The result, for the beef at least (we passed on the liver) is that while some parts of the meat become black and charred and crispy-crusty, others cook no further than medium or medium-rare. Each piece of beef is a bit like a bite of a thick char-grilled steak, a mix of textures and donenesses. It's brilliant.

    That's not all. After the skewers come off the grill they're annointed with a mixture of (I'm guessing here) soy sauce and with palm sugar -- a little salt, a little sweet (and I do mean "a little" -- palm sugar isn't as sweet as cane sugar), a little extra smoky caramel flavor to further play up the sweet smokiness the grill gives the meat.

For liver lovers only

    All well and delicious, but what truly qualifies this barbecued beef as The Bomb is its accompaniment: a sweet-sour pickle-salad of thick cucumber slices, finely shredded green papaya and ginger. There's all kinds of ways to eat the two together, but we like to mix a spoonful of fresh red chili sauce in with our salad-pickle and alternate mouthfuls: smoky-meaty, tangy-sweet-spicy. Another option: snag a mini baguette hot off the grill -- be sure to wave off the smear of rank margarine -- and stuff it with meat and pickle for the ultimate grilled beef sandwich.

    This isn't the only BBQ beef skewer place in town, but it's certainly one of the busiest. Already heaving at five, it was still doing the business on our first visit around 7:30. Go early; unlike the full-service barbecue restaurants these places tend to close up shop by 9 or so.

Beef (and beef liver) skewers, a ten-minute walk from Psar Chas / Old Market: cross the bridge in front of the market and veer right (south) at the circle, past the Hip Hop Club. It's on your left, a corner place directly opposite the sign for the Golden Banana Guest House and Boutique Resort (which, by the way, is a great place to stay). To see the place on a google map go here. Order skewers in multiples of 5. On our first visit 15 skewers (beef), 5 or 6 plates of pickle-salad and two orders of bread cost us less than U$5. On our next visit 2 pickles and 5 skewers (no bread) cost 5,000 riel.

In Siem Reap, a Spot as Worthy of Your Attention as Angkor's Temples

    I'm almost ashamed that this is the first proper Cambodian meal we've had since arriving in Siem Reap almost a week ago.

    We can't help but view time in this tourist town as an opportunity to partake of food and drink we don't get much of at home in Penang: reasonably priced, creative and really delicious cocktails in cool bars (Miss Wong), decent pizza accompanied by a good barbera d'Asti that doesn't break the bank (Il Forno), contemporary French bistro fare in a sleek setting (Abacus), wonderful homestyle Korean dishes highlighting spices we're new to (like crushed perilla seeds, in gamjatang; Happy Restaurant), good cheese and ice cream and mangoes at a ridiculously low price per kilo. Plus we've been working, and doing vacation-y things (what a concept!) like staying out late and sleeping in

    So Cambodian food hasn't been high on the agenda. Oh sure, we've managed a bit of street food -- fresh rice rolls, noodles and grilled pork rice and, of course, iced coffee -- but we haven't burrowed into the local food scene with nearly as much gusto as we usually do.

    That changes today. After a wonderful meal at a little place we would never have looked twice at were it not for the recommendation of a local chef, we're eager for more.  The restaurant is called Chanrea Dom Makara, and it's a gem. The staff is friendly, the vibe relaxed and the food -- for us Cambodian cuisine neophytes anyway -- remarkably delicious. After our first lunch there (there have been two in as many days) we floated out the door, high on whatever chemicals the brain releases into the blood stream after an especially fine feast. I expect we'll further mine the menu over several visits before we depart Siem Reap next week.

    It's your typical local joint -- long and narrow, no aircon, tables covered in patterned plastic cloth, a kitten or two scurrying from table to table and a tiny kitchen where most everything is prepared to order. On weekdays the place is packed out at lunchtime -- it's best to arrive before noon lest you be turned away for lack of seats. Don't sit at the two tables just inside across from the kitchen and the pass-through window unless you want to leave smelling like fried fish paste.

    Here's what floated our boat on the first visit:

    Prahok ktih, a dip of prahok (a fermented fish condiment similar to Thai bplaa raa) cooked with minced pork and coconut milk, flavored with a pounded paste that includes turmeric, lemongrass and galangal. The prahok's assertive pungency is tamed by the pork fat and the tiny pea eggplants give occasional bursts of bitterness, shaking up taste buds that might otherwise be lulled into a stupor by rich coconut cream. The raw vegetable plate served alongside included thin slices of sour green tomato -- a nice touch.

 

    This cloudy sour fish soup -- listed on the English menu as "Vietnamese sour soup"  -- was just as puckery as we like it, lightly fishy, bright and intensely herbal from the inclusion of paddy herb and Vietnamese mint. A perfect palate cleanser between mouthfuls of other dishes.

    If non-Cambodians know amok it's often as a kind-of fish custard steamed in a banana leaf similar to Thai hawmok or Penang-style otak-otak. This version is deconstructed: slices of fish and noni leaf (noh in Khmer) in a lovely Indian mango-orange coconut curry. This dish was our favorite for the noh leaf most of all. Meaty and with the heft and texture of collard greens, it has a pleasant ever so light bitter edge that beautifully complements coconut milk anything. I'd happily eat this dish sans fish, all noh.

    A quick google search turns up plenty of links for Cambodian green mango salad with dried shrimp but hardly any for this green mango dish made with dried beef. When I saw it on the menu I immediately thought of the dried beef-green papaya salads we used to eat in Saigon, but this one is different: dominated by the flavor of fresh herbs, less sweet, less wet, not really spicy, the beef less salty than Vietnamese died beef and in the form of the thinnest shavings rather than thickish matchsticks. This dish was difficult to share; it's light and refreshing and I could eat it by the bucketful, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

    Fried salt fish and watermelon, a dish of two ingredients served on separate plates, didn't quite work. I was expecting a buzzy salty-sweet/protein-fruit marriage-in-the-mouth along the lines of watermelon and Turkish feta-like beyaz peynir, but it wasn't there. Of course it wasn't -- fried salt fish doesn't coat the tongue as milk-rich feta cheese does so unlike watermelon and cheese, watermelon and fish just don't conjugate. But, but ... the salt fish is truly fine, the tastiest I've ever eaten -- not very salty, "young" enough that the fish's flesh separates into moist shreds rather than breaking into dry sticks. It's dusted with a bit of chili and has hardly a hint of grease. I'd order it again on its own and might even consider packing a bag or two away, to snack on later with beer or cocktails.

Update: After a second visit, we can also recommend the spicy sour soup, a folden, not-very-spicy coconut milk-enriched puckery broth with fish and water spinach/kangkong; and the deep-fried Tonle Sap fish with quick pickle-ish sour green mango and green tomato relish. The fish are about 9 inches long, not very bony (the spine lifts out easily) and fried to a perfect crisp, really lovely eaten with the mango.

Chanrea Dom Makara, Sivatha Road a block or so north of the former Hotel de la Paix (as you're heading in the direction of Highway 6), on your left. Look for a green-and-white awning with a couple outdoor tables beneath. Tel. 012-925-530. The kitchen is just to your right as you enter, with a wall of dish photos and names in English. Our lunch for three cost U$12.

DIY: Dried Salt Fish

If you've been to an Asian wet market you know them -- dried and flattened whole fish that could pass for cardboard cut-outs, slabs of salted fish fillets so hard and stiff they could be used as a weapon. There's a reason westerners often wrinkle their nose at the mention of salt fish: too often the stuff available to the average consumer is, well, too salty, too dry and so leached of fish flavor that there's nothing left but the stink.

But small-batch, homemade dried salted fish is another food entirely. Umami rich, lightly salty and with -- yes -- the taste of real fish, it's a great addition to stir-fries (a personal favorite: stir-fried bean sprouts with salt fish), pasta dishes and southeast Asian-style salads. If the fish you salt are small, try deep-frying them whole and eating like potato chips, crackly crispy bones and all, on their own or with a dip (like guacamole! or this northern Thai "red-eye" dip) or crumbled over a refreshing somtam. Imagine frying small dried fish like smelt Lao-style, with chili peppers and lime leaves and garlic, for a fantastic beer snack along the lines of these addictive dried mushrooms we ate in Luang Prabang. Think of any dish to which you might add salted anchovies, or anchovies preserved in oil, or fish sauce or oyster sauce and contemplate using salt fish instead.

Summer is a great time to make your own dried salt fish. (You can do it in cold weather too, as long as you have good strong sun.) If you live in a dry climate so much the better, but we made our own (that's them, in the photo above!) this week here in Penang, where humidity levels regularly hover above seventy per cent. Our guide in this endeavor was our long-time Thai helper Wan (that's Wan of the Kuala Lumpur ant egg harvest). The process is so simple that she snickered when we asked for directions.

To make salt fish it's best to have, or construct, some sort of hanging apparatus outside where it catches sunlight. (You can also lay your fish on a rattan mat or other material, but the more of the fish that's exposed to air and sun all at once, the more evenly they'll dry and the quicker the whole process will go.) We stuck a broomstick in a hole in the wall that surrounds our property and suspended our skewered salted fish from it with plastic twine.

Preferably you will time this project to start the fish drying early in the morning. Note that they need to wallow in salt in the fridge overnight or up to 24 hours before you hang them outside to dry.

Here's the process:

1. Procure some fish. Any fish will do, really. Oily fish like sardines, anchovies, mackerel, smelt, ocean trout and salmon will result in the strongest flavor. If you're a salt fish newbie you might want to give it a go with a milder fish: trout, sea bass, john dory, flounder, halibut, cod etc.
2. Clean your fish well. If the fish are small (the ones in the photo above were about 6 inches long) you can leave them whole -- just cut off the head and, if you like, fins and tail. If you're using fillets slice them into manageable pieces. A slab of salmon, for instance, I might slice into 6 by 2-inch strips. Remove as many bones as you can, but if you plan to deep-fry the little buggers the bones will become crispy enough to eat.
3. Dry the fish, and then rub them with plenty of good quality salt -- sea salt, kosher salt, whatever. I'm convinced that the problem with alot of commercial dry salt fish is the salt that's used by the maker -- nasty heavily iodized salt makes for nasty salt fish. Put the fish in a bowl or a ceramic baking dish, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge -- or a very cool, dark place) overnight or for up to 24 hours.
4. Remove the fish and rinse them well to get rid of the salt, and pat them dry. Skewer the fish in a way that exposes as much surface area as possible to air and sun. For instance, if you're drying whole fish, pull the sides of the fish apart so that the gut area opens up (see photo).
5. Hang the fish in the sun. If you're concerned about flies and other insects (strangely, despite Penang's humid heat not a single insect bothered our fish when they were hanging outside) drape your fish with cheesecloth. You may want to adjust the position of the fish throughout the day, turning them front to back or whatnot, to get even sun exposure.
6. Bring the fish inside at the end of the day and give it a gentle squeeze. You're not looking for cardboard, but the fish should be relatively dry. If any moisture comes to your fingers they're not done -- place them, covered, back in the fridge overnight (or in a very cool, dark place) and repeat the drying process the next day. Two days should do it.
7. Use the fish right away, or store in the fridge.

Think about variations that bring dried seasonings into play -- you might rub your fish with chili flakes before hanging it out to dry, or with lemon zest or zatar.

 

Update 28 August 2012: See comments below for links to photos taken by Lynn Cook, an EA reader in Australia, who tried our recipe with excellent results!

Why the Silence? This.

It's certainly not for lack of material. We still have lots to share from our June sojourn in eastern Turkey ... and our winter trip before that and our fall travels before that. And from Kelantan and Penang and Chiang Mai and, and ...

But Dave's been preoccupied this last week with the likes of that gorgeous specimen above. He's shooting a food story in Mexico City (which you may know from some drool-inducing photos we've recently added to this blog's Facebook page).

I know from experience that he's the kind of photographer who never takes a break -- out before dawn and not back to his hotel till well after dark. So when he says he's too tired and busy to process even a few photos for a post, I believe him.

Hard as it sometimes even for me to accept .... shooting food really is work.

I did cajole him into sending one last image. "Blue corn tortilla, fresh squash blossoms and a bright tomato and red chili salsa at a stall off Reforma Avenue," is how he described it.

Regularly scheduled programming resumes later this week, after Dave returns from Tortilla Heaven.