Num banh chok

Ingredients

• Fine rice noodles500 g
• White fish700 g
• Coconut milk500 ml
• Lemongrass4
• Galangal40 g
• Fresh turmeric30 g
• Kaffir lime leaves6
• Prahok or fish sauce3 tbsp
• Banana blossom200 g
• Bean sprouts200 g
• Cucumbers2
• Yard-long beans150 g
• Mint, basil, coriander100 g
• Water lily stems — optional150 g
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Poach the fish in salted water for ten minutes, lift it out and pick it by hand, removing every bone.

   20 min

2. 2

   Pound the lemongrass, galangal, turmeric and lime leaves in a mortar into a kroeung paste.

   20 min

3. 3

   Work the picked fish into the paste in the mortar, keeping the threads distinguishable.

   12 min

4. 4

   Warm the fish and spice mixture in a pan for five minutes, then add the prahok and the fish broth.

   10 min

5. 5

   Add the coconut milk and warm it ten minutes without letting it boil.

   12 min

6. 6

   Shred all the vegetables fine and pile them on a large platter.

   20 min

7. 7

   Boil the noodles, rinse them in cold water and serve them cold under the warm curry.

   12 min

About the dish

The noodles are served cold and the curry warm. That temperature contrast is part of the dish, and warmed noodles turn num banh chok into an ordinary soup.

The fish is poached, picked by hand and then pounded in a mortar with the kroeung. Blitzed in a blender it becomes a paste rather than the threads that should be recognisable in the sauce.

More vegetables are served than noodles: banana blossom, sprouts, cucumber, long beans and five kinds of herb. It is breakfast, eaten at the market from five in the morning.

Worth knowing

• — Prahok, the fermented fish paste, is very pungent. Start with one spoon and taste: too much buries everything else.
• — Cut the banana blossom into acidulated water. In the air it darkens within a minute and turns brown.
• — The vegetables are not dressed. They go into the bowl raw, and the flavour comes from the curry they soak up on the plate.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

580 kcal

Protein

38 g

Fat

24 g

Carbs

58 g

More from Cambodia

• Fish amok — Fish in a coconut curry, steamed in a cup folded from banana leaf.
• Lok lak — Cubes of beef seared over high heat, on salad, with a dip of lime and black pepper.
• Samlor korko — A thick vegetable soup with toasted ground rice, pork and prahok, from a dozen vegetables.