Khmer Food: In Praise Of Salt And Pepper

My love affair with salt and pepper began when I was a toddler. The dripping on toast my grandfather used to make with meat jelly and fat from the Sunday roast would have been nothing without the liberal amounts of salt and pepper he sprinkled on top.

And then there were the salt and pepper sandwiches my father got me into - thickly-buttered, white spongy slices from a sandwich loaf fresh from the bakers, filled with nothing more than a generous sprinkling of salt and freshly-ground black pepper. To me, it was a meal fit for a king as we sat in front of a roaring fire and drank cups of strong, brown tea during cold, wintry evenings.

Just as good were the boiled eggs and soldiers we’d have in the mornings, with a small mound of salt and pepper on the plate. We’d plunge the soldiers into the runny, golden goodness, and then into the two condiments - a simple, but delightful, dip that would leap me forward to eating Khmer food more than three decades later.

Over here, that magical combination is even better because of the abundance of Kampot pepper - the finest pepper in the world, and the country’s first product to get Geographical Indicator status. And if they are generous enough to give you the far superior and costly red pepper, as they do in one or two of the seafront restaurants in Kep’s famous crab market, then it’s out of this world.

But in Cambodia, they add something to the salt and pepper dip that makes it even more splendid - lime juice. It might not have been what I’d wanted with my soldiers in the morning all those years back. But I remember the flavour was always there in the dripping whenever we roasted a chicken because of the lemon quarters stuffed inside, which do incredible things to the succulence and flavour of the meat.

In restaurants here, they usually serve a mix of two thirds freshly-ground black pepper to one third salt, then carefully squeeze in two or three lime quarters and mix it in front of you. It might seem a laughably simple procedure that would scarcely trouble even the most cack-handed cook. But they take it as seriously as a chef de rang would the preparation of crepe suzette, pressed duck, or table-carved rib of beef, squeezing in the ‘correct’ amount of lime juice until there is the right moistness to the sauce.

The dip - called ‘tik marij’ in Khmer - works perfectly with a plate of selected cuts from a whole barbecued calf (ko dut), and even better with freshly-boiled seafood, particularly blue swimmer crabs, which although contain little brown head meat, and virtually no morsels in the claws, more than make up for it with the generously fleshy chine.

It always reminds me of seaside towns in Blighty, where a visit isn’t complete without a tub of whelks, liberally sprinkled with salt, white pepper, and malt vinegar, and eaten during a few bracing turns on the seafront. Over here, the lime juice takes the place of the vinegar. It’s fresher tasting, less acerbic, and far more complimentary to seafood. But I still miss those whelks...



It really is wonderful dipping crab meat into the tik marij and washing it down with ice cold beer. And what a way to spend an afternoon sitting in the crab market, gazing out to sea, and watching those women in their brightly-coloured hats checking their pots just 20 yards or so from the restaurant steps.

The crack of claws and chine, and that sweet meat magnified a hundred times by the pepper grown in the plantations behind the national park, sea salt from the neighbouring salt beds, and limes from the orchards. It’s an oasis where the land meets the sea and offers the very best the pair have in a tryst of gastronomic delight. In Singapore or Thailand, the crab might be smothered in chilli, in Vietnam it could take on an overriding taste of caramel, and in China it would most likely be in an MSG-laden sauce, thickened with cornflour.

But there is something delightfully, and deceptively, simple about Cambodian food - which is why it’s a shame it’s so overlooked. It’s the understanding of balance, simplicity, and the knowledge that fresh, local ingredients have a natural symmetry. And that’s why I love it. Simplicity in food is often dismissed as a lack of sophistication or technique, often engendering a lack of confidence in a country’s cuisine. But it couldn’t be further from the truth, and you’ve only got to look at the food in Italy to see it done to perfection.

Beef Lok Lak

The dish in Cambodia you’ll usually first encounter tik marij is beef lok lak (probably the country’s second most famous meal after its vastly over-rated fish amok). Many recipes call for the beef to be marinated in the sauce ingredients for an hour or two, but in my experience it’s unnecessary given the strength of the flavours, and the fact the salt does little for the tenderness of Khmer steak. Here’s how a friend of mine in a restaurant in Sihanoukville makes hers - simplicity in the extreme, and definitely worth making at home.

She starts by dicing a piece of steak (sirloin, rib-eye or rump work well) into smallish cubes, and then chops up two cloves of garlic. She heats a tiny amount of oil in a pan, and then fries the garlic until it begins to colour, and then throws in the meat to singe slightly.

She adds a sprinkling of sugar and salt to help the caramelisation process, and then cooks the meat for another minute or so. She then pours in a little water, and when it is bubbling, adds a glug of tomato ketchup and a couple of heaped teaspoons of oyster sauce.

She continues stirring, producing a velvety red and brown sauce. She cooks the meat until it is still quite bloody in the middle (about medium-rare) and then takes it off the heat to rest for a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, she garnishes each plate with lettuce and three thick slices of tomato and onion, and then fries an egg. She mixes salt and pepper in a dish and squeezes in lime juice, and then serves.

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Sihanoukville: Fishiest Of All Fishy Places?

I started having doubts about Cambodian food when I arrived in Sihanoukville. The deep-water port – said to be the country’s finest and certainly most famous beach resort – is known for its seafood and Khmer cooking, among other pleasures. But sadly I’ve found few examples of good local dishes.

It’s because Costa del Cambodia is so geared towards tourists, with every menu offering cottage pie, fish and chips, spag bol, schnitzel, and of course, burgers and pizza (some are of the ‘happy’ kind (below), where they lace the top with a sprinkling of the local oregano) that the chefs have either forgotten how to cook Khmer food, or they’ve just eaten too much of the pizza. Or quite possibly both.

In an apparent afterthought, tucked away in an almost ashamed manner in the tiny Khmer section at the back of each menu, you can sometimes get what are probably the country’s two most famous dishes – amok (fish cooked in a coconut curry sauce) and beef lok lak (a highly overrated dish for my money, where beef slices are stir-fried in a soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, cornflour-thickened gravy).

Often these Cambodian dishes are poor at best, and are nowhere near a match for the best offerings in the capital Phnom Penh. And that’s what I mean about Sihanoukville’s chefs being too fond of their oregano, because no-one seems to know how to make either of these dishes. There is no consistency.

For instance, anything seems to be chucked into a lok lak - or is it a lac lot? - from tomato ketchup to oyster sauce to sweet chilli sauce to tinned pilchards. And it rarely comes with the traditional lime, salt and cracked pepper dip, and the beef generally varies in tenderness from the thickness of boiled leather to the tenderness of biltong soaked in water for two-and-a-half seconds.

But what Snooky lacks in food, it certainly makes up for in its laid-back beach atmosphere and thumping nightlife. It’s like Amsterdam by the sea. I do know Amsterdam is by the sea. But I mean BY THE SEA, and just the best bits. Not some filthy port filled with icy winds and cappuccinos for 28 euros a cup, but a white-sand paradise with lovely clear seas, incredibly undeveloped tropical islands a short boat ride away, and blisteringly hot weather. And there’s no shmoked eelsh or an overpriced Oranjeboom in sight.

It’s a great place, and has been compared by many to Pattaya 20 years ago, so there’s still a long time to visit before it gets completely ruined and turned into Earth’s social dustbin.

Anyway I digress. I have had some good meals here, and rather than dwell on the bad ones, and the rather unchanging face of Cambodian cuisine, I thought I’d concentrate on the good ones. My best meals have been eating with the locals. It’s such a friendly place that within days I found myself loitering in kitchens chatting to cooks and chefs, and eating what they eat rather than the stuff they knock out for the tourists.

One evening I had a splendid meal of tiny barbecued river fish with pickled cabbage (above). It was fantastic. The fish had been cooked for so long over wood, they had that delicious magical combination of wood smoke and salt. They reminded me of smoked anchovies they were so strong in flavour.

But the cabbage was the star. It was splendidly sour and sweet and the perfect accompaniment for the salty fish and ubiquitous bowl of sticky rice. My new chums were worried about me eating too much cabbage, saying my stomach wasn’t used to it.

I don’t know what they were talking about, but they kept pointing at my paunch and saying “bad”. I was starting to get quite embarrassed, and even made a mental note to make a final decision (at least consultation stage) about going back on Gary Oldman’s vodka, fish and melon diet.

Then when they started pointing back at the cabbage juice, I realised they were probably talking about the vinegar. They clearly thought the only time vinegar is used in British cooking is when a few drops of malt are sprinkled over chips, but then that was no surprise given the dishes on the menu.

There was also a pork noodle soup that was divine (above). It was filled with beautifully soft slices of belly, deep-fried tofu, and banana flowers. The pork stock had been boiling all day, with the addition of chicken feet for extra gloop. It was rich and meaty like a good Vietnamese pho.

But it was the condiments (above) that really made it – shrimp paste, tamarind fruit in water, sliced red chillies and sugar. I’d really recommend the four next time you make a noodle soup. For me, the tamarind is a better sour addition than lime, and shrimp paste (or the deliciously pungent, creamy Roquefort taste of prahoc if you’re lucky enough to be able to get it) is a richer, less harsh flavouring than fish sauce.

And then there was the amok (below) – an absolute cracker of a meal when done right. Forget all the nonsense about steaming and serving it in banana leaves, the best cooks just seem to simmer it in a pot over a charcoal burner and serve it in bowls like a conventional curry. It’s a very moreish dish, and definitely grows on you. It’s the subtleties of the flavour combinations rather than the smack-in-the-face quality you’d get in a similar dish in neighbouring Thailand or Vietnam.

It’s also quite chameleon-like. It initially has a whiff of stew about it with its flavour-soaked carrots and potatoes, but then drifts towards a creamy korma, and then you get a hint of lime leaf, like a massaman curry, but less spicy. And then it changes again, and you get the taste of the egg yolk and coconut cream that have been mixed in at the end.

Its final notes are the warmth of cracked black pepper and the buttery taste of prawns and white fish, and it suddenly changes again – this time into a chowder.

For some reason, it made me think of Moby Dick when Ishmael and Queequeg feast at the Try Pots, a rough inn famed for its chowder “plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt”.

And leaning back a moment, it started bethinking me of the fishiest of all fishy places I'd found myself in. I don’t know if it was the intensity and freshness of the fish, the sea air, or the decidedly colourful characters that live in the hazy bars on Victory Hill. But I’ve never sat down at a table before and been the only person who hasn’t been to prison.