Return Of The Great Foodie Posts - Running Amok

 I am now up to 2016 in my review of my blog posts. It seems it has been ages since I wrote a real food preparation post. Like so many whose prior life patterns are disrupted I too have been doing quite a bit of cooking. On Friday I went to our local Asian Supermarket for the first time since the pandemic restrictions. I bought a bunch of special condiments AND I bought a couple of fresh fish. Wife and I have found the fish at this market are always better and less expensive than elsewhere in our landlocked city plus there is more variety. I bought a couple of Golden Pompano. I knew this was more than we needed but planned to use the surplus for another meal. My inspiration - Amok - the national curry of Cambodia.

Step One - Make Your Curry Paste

Curry pastes are foundational to the cuisines of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia (Vietnam has a different ethnic and food heritage). They are made by taking a combination of roots, stalks and leave and pounding them with spices until they become a paste. The recipe I used for Amok calls for garlic, shallot, galangal (similar to ginger), tumeric root, lemongrass, kefir lime leaf, salt, brown sugar, and hot chile paste.

Below from top to bottom - Kefir lime leaf, galangal, shallot, lemongrass, garlic & tumeric root

I buy these in quantity and freeze them so I can whip up variations when I need to.  When using I then grate them into my Mortar and Pestle. This makes it much, much easier to pound into a paste than when they are raw (because the fibers all breakdown when they are frozen)

After the requisite pounding

Next on to our fish stock

I took the leftover fish and separated the meat from the bones and skin. I took the latter and added onion, carrot, garlic and ginger, covered with water, brought to a low boil and cooked for 15 minutes.

Now on to making the Amok Curry

We take Crab or Shrimp Paste and cook quickly in oil

Then we add some of our fish stock and coconut milk 

Now we add a healthy dollop (that is a scientific Grandparent cooking term) of our Amok paste. NOTE - putting the cooking liquids in first and adding the paste is distinctly Cambodian. All other SE Asian cuisines fry the paste in oil. This Cambodian technique produces a decidedly lighter flavor.

After cooking our paste for just a few minutes, add your cooked other ingredients - in my case the cooked fish and some cooked squash

Heat through and serve on rice

Dinner is served 

(Note - the corn on the cob is NOT traditionally done in Cambodia lol)