Cambodia: Food and the National Dish

A quieter cuisine between two famous neighbours

Khmer food sits between Thailand and Vietnam geographically and gets far less international attention than either, but it has its own clear identity: it shares much with the cooking of central Thailand and southern Vietnam, yet is built on a herb paste called kroeung and grounded in prahok, a pungent fermented fish paste that gives Cambodian food its most distinctive underlying flavour. Rice and freshwater fish from the Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, carry most meals.

The national dish: fish amok

Fish amok is fish, usually snakehead, goby or catfish, coated in kroeung — a paste of aromatics such as lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, garlic and kaffir lime — mixed with coconut milk and egg, then steamed, often in a folded banana leaf, until it sets into a soft, custard-like texture somewhere between a curry and a mousse. It is Cambodia's best-known dish abroad and is widely regarded as one of the country's national dishes at home as well.

What Khmer cooking is built on

Kroeung is to Khmer cooking what curry paste is to Thai food: a pounded mix of aromatics that changes slightly by region and dish but always supplies the backbone of flavour. Prahok, fermented fish paste, does similar work from the savoury, pungent end of the spectrum, stirred into dips, soups and sauces in small amounts — intense on its own, but foundational rather than overwhelming once cooked into a finished dish.

Dishes to know

Five more to recognise across Cambodia:

• Nom banh chok — thin rice noodles served with a green, herb-and-fish-based

curry sauce, often eaten for breakfast and one of the dishes Cambodia's government promotes abroad alongside amok.

• Lok lak — cubes of marinated, stir-fried beef served over lettuce and

tomato, a popular restaurant staple adopted from Vietnamese shaking beef.

• Bai sach chrouk — grilled marinated pork served over rice, a common

breakfast street food.

• Kuy teav — a noodle soup with Chinese-Cambodian roots, another common

breakfast choice, especially in Phnom Penh.

• Kep crab — fresh crab from the coastal town of Kep, sold by seafront

vendors sautéed with onions and black pepper.

Drinks and French leftovers

Coffee, usually served with sweetened condensed milk, hot or over ice, is a French colonial legacy that Cambodia kept and made its own, alongside num pang, a Cambodian take on the French baguette sandwich. Beer is now the most popular alcoholic drink, with Angkor, brewed in Sihanoukville, among the best-known brands, while in the countryside rice wine and palm wine made from palmyra sap are widely drunk; the same palm gives Kampong Speu palm sugar, a protected Geographical Indication.

Eating as a traveller

Vegetarians can rely on rice, vegetable-based soups and tofu dishes, though prahok and fish sauce find their way into a great deal of Khmer cooking even when a dish looks vegetarian, so it is worth asking directly. Tap water is not safe to drink; stick to bottled or boiled water. Street food around markets in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap is generally an excellent, inexpensive way to try a wide range of dishes in one visit.

What to take from the table

Fish amok, made properly with real kroeung and steamed until it sets soft, is the dish to seek out first — and a bowl of nom banh chok from a morning market stall is the truer, everyday face of how Cambodians actually eat.