Fish Amok

One of the greatest Jerry's joining me today and we're going to be cooking something from Cambodia. Usually we're doing Vietnamese food. Yeah. Similarities in both cuisines? A lot of similarities and I love cooking Cambodian food because my father was born in Cambodia. There you go. So I get, I'm very lucky I get Vietnamese and some Cambodian food and I thought today I'll share something that is just not Vietnamese. I guess it's like the national dish of Cambodia. It's called Amok and it's a steamed fish in custard and banana leaf. I'm salivating already Jerry. So first we're going to make the paste. So the paste is your traditional, what we have here, lemongrass and you know the rule is we only use sort of like that bit there to about there. This becomes really fibrous so we don't really want that. So I always cut the lemongrass sort of where it bulges out. You don't throw that out, you chop it up, put it in a tea? Yeah and so it's just gonna smash that a little bit. And then we're going to roughly chop this up and then I'm going to get you to use your muscles if I can to pound this up for me. So we just chop this up. So this one I'll leave and I'll put it in the freezer. These will go in the mortar pestle with you. If you're putting in the machine you're just really chopping it up. So we really want to open these flavours up. And then I'll get you maybe a pinch of salt to help it along. And then we'll do a bit of garlic in there as well and the chilies when you're ready. And I might just give you a little bit more lemongrass in here. Lots of garlic. If you don't have a mortar and pestle you could do this in a food processor. Yeah definitely, definitely. But you know I don't go to the gym so I like a bit of a workout at home. This is much more interesting than going to the gym. This is my workout. And then just got some shallots here. I'm just roughly cutting it up so it just makes it a little bit easier to start pounding up. Okay and what type of chilies are we using? So we've got some dry large chilies. What I've done is I've just taken the seeds out and then we've just soaked it in some warm water and now it's really nice and you know soft again. Yeah. So this again, let's just roughly chop this up as well. We'll get it all in. How are you going there? I'm just warming up. You're warming up. And then I'll really get into it. You've just got to show your muscles out there right. Now this caper lime leaf, what I do is I always fold and take the stalk out of there. Same as over here. And then my favourite is galangal. Like it's beautiful. It's really like really nice earthy sort of flavours in there. When you're buying galangal, I always look for bits that are still like this really light pink colour. When it gets to that darker colour, it means it's a lot older. It's been picked a long time ago and it's really really hard to chop. But if you've got a soft piece like this, see how that just comes off and we're just peeling it really easily like so. It really looks like ginger but not to be mistaken with ginger at all. Correct. Really aromatic flavour. Makes a huge difference when you use it in curries and pastes and braisings. In you go. All right. There we go. So you are doing an absolutely amazing job there. Yes. So while you're doing that, I've got some beautiful fillets of local snapper. We've pin boned it. We've taken the centre bone out. We've just skinned it. So a really nice white flesh fish is really good for this. We don't have to mince the fish up. We're just going to roughly slice that up. So what it's going to do in the curry is you'll see really nice chunks of the meat in there. This is going to be great. All right. I better get back to work. You get back to that. You do that easy job now. All right. Well done. You've done such an amazing job. All right. Now what we're going to do, we're going to add probably half of that paste into here. I must say it's worth doing it like this. Yeah. The flavour smells amazing, isn't it? I've got a couple of eggs that I'm going to add to this. A couple of these eggs. So that's going to really bind everything together. Yeah, correct. And I've got a bit of palm sugar that goes in here. A little bit of this fish sauce in here. So Cambodian food, how would you even describe it? Look, you know, I've always said that it's the forgotten child, the middle child. Cambodia's got the border of Vietnam to one side and then you've got Thailand on the other side. So I always call Thailand is the big brother or big sister because it's punchy, really full of flavour, a lot of things going on. And then you've got Vietnam. You know, we're a bit gentle, we're kind. In that sense, it's a really, really amazing mixing pot of those two cultures and those two cuisines. All right. So I'm just going to give this a really nice... So you're almost like emulsifying that egg with the protein from the fish. Working all that together. Yeah. There we go. All right. Looks really good. Now, the next step is really simple. What we're going to do is get some banana leaf because, you know, normally it sits in this banana leaf and then we'll steam it. So let me show you how we treat banana leaf. So, you know, if you use banana leaf as it is, it's really sort of like brittle. It really breaks. It doesn't... It's not pliable. So we just got to make it pliable so that we can sort of bend it into whatever we need to. So, stove on. We put it over the flame and see, as it changes colour, that's when it gets... All the oils get released. And then we just keep that moving down the leaf. Some people do boil the leaves. Right. I find this is a far easier way to do it. And this will be like a little bowl or a little vessel where we're going to... Correct. Cook our actual fish paste in it. Yeah. So I'm just getting this ready so that when we do put it in a bowl, it does just sit and do what we want it to do. So I just cut a little bit down, depending the size of your bowl. Oh, yeah. Look at that. So see how it just sits in there? But if I use that, that would just break in there. And banana leaf is really easy, accessible nowadays. You can get it at a lot of Asian groceries. So just like that, I've created myself a little nest, a little vessel in there. And then what we'll do is we'll scoop some of this out. In it goes. You want it to be quite compact? Yeah. So we'll add all that in. And then what I'll do is just give it a little tap down, just to make sure I've got everything and all the air bubbles out of that. And this will go into the steamer. We'll steam this for about 20 minutes. The way I check is I just put a skewer through. If it comes out clean, then it's done. Very nice. Hot boiling steamer in there. And then it just does its thing. Nice, see you in 20. Good. Smells good. Love it. Look, it's ready. Let's check it. Yes. It's been about 20 minutes in here. It should be all set. If you pierce it through, it's quite firm. You know it's done. All right, I need a little tea towel. I'm going to get this out. Here we go. So, you know, this is so popular in Cambodia. You get it in every restaurant, in every street, everywhere, right? But the one thing I've omitted from here is brahop, just in case my Cambodian friends come after me. It's a really strong, pungent fermented fish. So I've just left that out. So we've got just really all the nice aromatics. So from that, I'll just lift this out. See how it just comes out. And then just here, from here, I'm just going to garnish with a little bit of the coconut milk here. And then I've got some kaffir lime leaf. Just sprinkle over, just bringing back that freshness. And then chilli. Because there's never enough chillies, right? No way. There we go. And the presentation of that is just so pretty. Yeah, like this is what you'll find all through Cambodia. I love it. I love it when my mum makes it. I don't make it as well as my mother's. So that I can go there and she'll make it for me. It's a good idea. I do that with my children. I just can't nail that. Just secret ingredient. It's because mama cooks. So I'm not going to argue with that. And a beautiful bowl of steamed rice. This is like the most comforting meal you could have. Oh, the taste of Cambodia. Let's have a taste. Dig in. Oh, it's so soft. It's really nice. You get the really nice galangal through it. Lemongrass, lime leaves. And the fish is still really moist as well. That's incredible. I love that you've still got the texture there. And after 20 minutes, it certainly doesn't dry out, does it? No, it doesn't. Because the egg really helps it. The egg really protects it as well. And it's just cooked through. And you know, I always say like you travel through food. Yes. So I go to Cambodia and I love this dish. I come back. I make it. I go to Vietnam. I have banh mi. I remember sitting on plastic stools or whatever it is, wherever it is that you are in Southeast Asia or wherever you are in the world traveling. I think food is the one that ties you back and is reminiscent to it. Oh, perfect words. That's it. I'm booking a trip to Cambodia. Let's go.