In Cambodia, not only best known for the most attractive travel destination, unique atmosphere, but the food is also very famous and healthy. Cambodian cuisine is well-known for its unique and bold ingredients.
We can say Cambodia is one of the countries that has rich culture and tradition, so the complexity of the ingredients is quite different from neighboring countries like in Cambodia, we tend to value the vegetables, herbs, or fish as the most important ingredients while in neighboring countries such as Vietnam or Thailand no longer value.
Each country has their own unique taste of food while in Cambodia, you might feel Cambodian cuisine is somehow very unique and different from other countries. There are some ingredients that some of you might probably not know as it’s edible and important, but people in Cambodia use it all, and value it well.
1. Prohok
Prohok: most people including foreigners or Cambodian might not like the smell of Prohok. It smells like the death fish, but it somehow tastes good. I believe that Prohok is only used in Cambodia, or mostly used by Cambodian people, and outsiders might not like the taste and smell of Prohok for sure. For this reason, Prohok makes Cambodian unique and delicious. Although it smells bad, but if you know how to clean and use it, it surely is the main ingredients that makes your food delicious. There are many kind of food that you can add Prohok like Teuk Kreoung, and we can make papaya salad with Prohok as well by converting Prohok as sauce.
2. Fruit as the ingredient
Fruit as the ingredient: people might know that fruit can only eat or drink as dessert or juice, but in Cambodia, Cambodian also uses fruits as the ingredients in making food such as mango, papaya, pineapple, and more. For mango, Cambodian tends to use it as mango salad with dry fish or smoke fish. For pineapple, they tend to stir fry it with any kind of vegetables and meat by seasoning it, and adding oyster sauce into it. With these creativity, they make Cambodian food very unique.
3. Rice
Rice: rice also makes Cambodian food different from others. In some countries like in Europe, they don’t normally eat rice for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. They principally enjoy bread or fast food, unlike Cambodia. In Cambodia, people tend to eat a bowl of rice every meal, and the advantages is that it makes them full so that they can’t eat more food like fast food, which is very good for their weight and health, and rice is full of nutrient. Cambodian people always eat rice as their breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and rice can also be made as fried rice with sausage or Lok Lak, which makes it unique and delicious.