Crispy Fried Small Bengali Fish – Tengra Biran with Aubergine and Pepper Bazi

We eat many small fish in Bangladesh as they do in Thailand and Cambodia. Different types come in different sizes. The smallest being Khesri, which is only between 1 and 2 cm long. And by small I mean small. Haven’t a clue what it’s called in any other language. They are just 1 cm long and you eat them in a fish curry with thousands of them. I guess these are impossible to de-gut but I’ll ask my mum tomorrow.

There are many different types anything from 1cm to 10cm long. You can buy them in London in frozen blocks in the Bangladeshi groceries all over the East End.

Here’s a delicious and easy way to prepare these mini crunchy starter snacks of Bengali cuisine.

The Tengra Mas before and after….! And the Aubergine Pepper Bazi.Heavenly or what!! 🙂

Fried Fish with Roasted Peanut & Ma’om Sauce

This was my first discovery of this wonderful Cambodian herb, Ma’om last yer. It has such a strong and pleasant taste. So aromatic and adds an exciting new taste to the dish. The citrusy flavour with a hint of black pepper I thought. Nothing like any herb I’d tasted before. And even though this dish is full of  the lovely aromatic flavours of lime leaves, lemongrass and galangal, the ma’om compliments all of these whilst adding it’s own intriguing taste that I won’t forget and am drawn to since!!

Ma’om – Herb from Cambodia

Ko Long Phnom – Cow Climb Mountain

Here’s a dish that I’ve had a few times eating out. This is the first time it was made in my kitchen by a friend. It’s amazing how different it is from my own style of cooking. The only work making this dish is preparing the vegetables and cutting the meat. The cooking time is minimal and the way it’s cooked and ate in little bits is just perfect for a leisurely late afternoon lunch drinking beer and eating this wonderful and very easy Khmer dish! Compared to my often hours of cooking time after the preparation this is a welcome change!!

Now about the name – Here’s the cooking grill needed to make the dish originally – See last picture below. That’s the ‘mountain’ and obviously the cow climbs it because on the raised bit goes the beef (or any other cuts of meat, fish or seafood for that matter). The veggies go in the side where there’s water and as a soup with noodles. The meat and veggies are cooked with a big paraffin lamp or butane gas flame under the grill.  I don’t own one so we just used a wok and my portable gas cooker. Worked just as well.

The beef is cut super thin and in small triangular shapes!

Lost Recipes – Lemongrass Fried Crispy Prawns and Sayur Masak Lemak

So here is a post of the dishes without recipes from the dinner party with Tin’s family.  It seemed such a shame not to use the pics that I spent so much time editing. So why no recipes, I hear you ask? Got eaten by the dog…we don’t have a dog?? The hamster? No? Okay, I simply didn’t write them down…or did and can’t find them anywhere. Many a recipes get lost in the ether again, I guess only to be channelled down to surprise another unsuspecting cook!

So here are some pics of the Lemongrass Fried Crispy Prawns and Sayur Masak Lemak!

Prawns Galore and Squids at Ease

Dinner Party for Tin and his Family

I invited Tin and some of his family round for dinner after we got back to Siem Reap. Another challenge. To make food that Cambodians like that isn’t Cambodian. Of course I carefully picked dishes that I’d never cooked before. Isn’t that something one shouldn’t do with new dinner guests?

Tuek Trey Koh Kong Fried Baby Squid

Lemongrass Fried Crispy Prawns

Sayur Masak Lemak

Soya Sesame Chicken in Banana Leaves

And of course I had raw vegetables and mustard green leaves to eat with the dipping sauces. If all else failed, my guests would definitely eat this as this is staple food for the Khmer. I really miss all the fresh greens and veggies everyday.

The Lemongrass Fried Crispy Prawns dish and the Sayur Masak Lemak I won’t be posting as recipes because I didn’t write them down and really don’t remember the details. The Sayur Masak Lemak wasn’t great anyway. I put way too much shrimp paste in and the whole dish tasted like…well shrimp paste! It was also the only dish that was hardly touched. Everything else never saw the light of day again.

Sayur Masak Lemak is a simple Malaysian vegetable dish. The recipe can be googled. Sounds a bit rude doesn’t it? Here’s the  name of the dish-google it if you want to cook it…..! I could shorten my blog to a few words…..ending in google it..?? Heh heh-naaah!!

The hit of the day was definitely The Soya Sesame Chicken in Banana Leaves. It was fiddly, messy and time consuming to make. But Oh My God, was it worth it! In fact it is still my number 1 favourite new dish that I have cooked since starting this blog.

Tin’s Grandfather passing away – me the amateur photographer :-)

Here are some random pics from the day. I love these pictures. Some became more grainy after compressing.

This one is my favourite!

Tin’s Grandfather passing away – the open air kitchen

Here are pics of the kitchen. Paradise.  Just like in Bangladesh there are a lot of hands at work. I got told off by the girls for not cutting the spring onions thin enough. Of course everyone was smiling. I surprised them with my knowledge of the Cambodian names of most of the ingredients they were using. It was such a pleasant atmosphere. They were all so warm hearted and welcoming. Everyone was doing something. Huge bowls used as woks balanced on cut out drums on a log fire cooking Baw Baw which is rice porridge in Cambodian. This rice porridge has a lot of ingredients and is absolutely delicious. I’ll post a recipe for one my partner made in the coming weeks.

Tin’s Grandfather passing away – the events of the day

Here are the pictures of the day. It wasn’t a gloomy day like at a funeral. In fact it was the opposite. Most people were happy. There were the monks praying in a large group of which I failed to take a single photo. Then there was the preparation of a huge amount of food for all of the guests in which I happily joined in and had a lot of fun. By the evening all the guests had left except for the close family and myself. We drunk and ate  for probably the sixth time that day.

Tin’s Grandfather

The coloured sand – so beautiful. Placed by hand by the monks.