We took a cooking class on our next day in Siem Reap called Khmer Cooking Class in a Local’s Home. We were picked up by a tuk tuk at our hotel at 9:30 and brought to a neighborhood about 15 minutes away. Our cooking instructor and guide was named Sorya, and she was very sweet. We met her at the home where we were to have the class. It was the grandmother’s home of the person who started the venture. The downstairs classroom and dining area were in a large open-air setting next to their gardens. We saw the kindly grandmother around the garden pruning palm trees. The first thing we did was choose which dishes each of us were going to make on the four-course meal so the staff could prepare the ingredients and cooking stations, It was just Sophie and I that day. We each chose different dishes so we could try more things.
Next we went to a market around the corner from the house. This definitely wasn’t a market designed for tourists, but the vendors were happy to have us walking around and even taking pictures as they knew we were supporting their community through our class. The fruits and vegetable stands had many things we didn’t know, and our guide explained all the different herbs, vegetables and fruits to us. Being a tropical country, the fruit was particularly good looking. Fresh mango, papaya, pineapple, little watermelon, tart banana, dragon fruit, passion fruit and more. There were also a lot of meat and fish on display that would not come close to passing any sort of health code in a modern country. There was no refrigeration or ice. Pieces of meat were displayed directly on the wooden platforms the vendors were sitting on. The most interesting were the fish. The fresh ones were still moving! The day old ones were cut up. There was also a vendor of various fermented fish paste sold from 5 gallon plastic buckets. It’s what they use for bouillon and fish sauce.
We then toured the garden back at the house. They grew a lot of their own vegetables like tomatoes, eggplant, mushrooms and different herbs. One of the ingredients used in some of their dishes was galangal, which was kind of a cross between lemongrass and ginger. You used the root like ginger. There was also the leaf of the noni plant that we used in Sophie’s fish amok dish.
We were then ready to start cooking. They actually had three other staff helping, so we really got a lot of attention. They had the ingredients all prepped for us so it was pretty easy to follow their instructions. One of the first steps for my curry and Sophie’s fish amok was to make a paste of the herbs, roots, lemongrass and garlic. We used a mortar and pestle to pulverize everything until it was smooth.
Here are the dishes we made. Don’t they look great? They tasted as good as they looked!
Getting to know Sorya and the other staff through food was such a neat experience. They had similar stories as our previous guide about how tough it was during Covid, and that they really need tourists to come back. We were their only customers that day, and they had plenty of days with no customers. I hope for them that things improve.
We hung out at our hotel in the afternoon and enjoyed the cool pool. And that evening we went to a circus called Phare – a non-profit that helps youth and families find a way out of poverty through art and performance. It was impressive and fun. They had a little street food fair before the show where we grabbed supper.
I would highly recommend Cambodia to anyone looking to travel to SE Asia. They are just so friendly, it’s the most affordable place we travelled, it’s easy to get around, it’s very relaxing and you have some of the most incredible sites to see in the world!
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