VideoNEW
Podcasts
Blogs
Watch Video
Special Consideration
Key Ingredient
Food Category
Cuisine Category
- Cuisine: Cambodian
This dish appears in much the same form in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand but had its origin, I suspect, as a classic Khmer dish. Called ho mok in Thailand and mawk in Laos, it is often made there with egg to produce a kind of savoury custard. The egg version appears in Khmer cuisine too, but because I have covered the version with egg elsewhere I have chosen one without egg here.
Ingredients
3 kaffir lime leaves500g (1 lb) boned chicken breast
½ cup thick coconut milk
1½ tsp sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
4 leaves silverbeet or 2 cups spinach or
2 cups Chinese broccoli
Banana leaves (optional)
Paste spices
14 dried chillies, seeded, soaked until soft, squeezed dry
½ tsp salt
½ cup sliced lemongrass
1 slice galangal
1–2 coriander (cilantro) roots
2.5 cm (1 in) piece fresh turmeric, chopped (or ½ tsp turmeric powder)
3 x 2 cm (1½ x ¾ in) piece kaffir lime skin
1 tsp shrimp paste
5 cloves garlic, sliced
5 shallots, sliced
Preparation
First make the spice paste. In a mortar or an electric food processor attachment grind the chillies and the salt to a fine paste, then add one by one and grind in the lemongrass, galangal, coriander, turmeric, lime skin, shrimp paste, garlic and shallots in that order until you have a very fine paste.Cut the lime leaves in half lengthwise, remove the central rib and slice them finely. Cut chicken breast into 5 cm (2 in) strips lengthwise and then into slices across. Put the coconut milk and the spice paste, the sugar and fish sauce to taste in a bowl and mix them thoroughly. The mixture should be discernibly sweet as well as spicy and salty. Add the chicken and mix, then add the lime leaves and mix everything together well. You can also use more coconut milk if you wish, although the mixture should not be too wet.
Remove the central rib from the silverbeet and cut the leaves into 5 cm (2 in) strips. From this point on the dish is usually prepared by steaming in a banana-leaf packet. It can do just as well in a bowl, however, and this is the method I have adopted here. Place the vegetable in the bottom of a soup bowl and spread the chicken on top. Put the bowl on a rack in a steamer and steam until cooked (about 25–30 minutes). Remove and serve in the bowl in which it was cooked.
Fish Amok is made using 500 g (1 lb) skinned thick fish fillets (such as ling or barramundi). Cut fillets into 2 cm (¾ in) pieces and add 1 teaspoon chopped Chinese keys to the mixture if it is available.
This is an edited extract from Rosemary Brissenden's South East Asian Food cookbook (Hardie Grant, $49.95).
If you enjoyed this Steamed spiced chicken recipe (amok) then browse more Cambodian recipes, meat recipes, entertaining recipes and our most popular hainanese chicken rice recipe.
Cambodian Restaurants
Displaying 1 of 1 Cambodian Restaurants.
| Restaurant | Book Online | Suburb | |
| 1. | Phnom Penh | Belconnen |
Featured Food & Recipes
Hot Tips
Pebre
The way the onions are prepared for the Pebre is a revelation and crucial for the right taste and texture. To finely chopped onion, mix through raw sugar and hot water then allow it to stand to mellow the acidity. Rinse and mix through salt in the same way.
Glossary
Pomegranate Molasses
A dark sticky liquid made from pomegranates and used to add a tart flavour, usually to Middle Eastern cuisine.
