Mainland Southeast Asia · Volume 41, The Coconut and the Court
Amok trei
Cambodia
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Researched
- 8 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Freshwater white fish, traditionally snakehead, combined with yellow kroeung and thick coconut cream, lightly thickened with rice flour, and steamed inside a folded, pinned banana leaf cup until it sets to a mousse like, custard firm texture.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 30 minutes, plus making the kroeung.
Ingredients
- 600g firm white fish fillet, cubed
- 150ml thick coconut cream
- 2 tbsp yellow kroeung
- 1 tsp rice flour
- 1 egg
- to taste fish sauce, palm sugar, to taste
- 4 banana leaf squares, for the cups
- a scatter, shredded shredded kaffir lime leaf, to finish
Method
- Bring 150ml coconut cream to a gentle simmer with the rice flour, stirring until it just thickens.
- Whisk in the kroeung, egg, fish sauce and palm sugar until smooth.
- Fold in the cubed fish.
- Fold and pin each banana leaf square into a shallow cup, and divide the mixture between them.
- Steam gently, 20 to 30 minutes, until just set to a firm custard. A hard boil will split the mixture and toughen the fish.
- Finish with shredded kaffir lime leaf and a spoonful of coconut cream over the top.
Notes
No source consulted for this chapter gave a single, precisely tested ratio for the coconut cream to rice flour to kroeung balance; the figures above are consistent across several sources and should be treated as indicative rather than a tested professional quantity.
What a modern chef changes
The custard logic taken as seriously as a French mousseline.
Rung 3
Method
- Run a Big Green Egg at a stable, low dome temperature with a water bath or steamer insert, for far more even, controllable heat than an open wok steamer.
- Check for doneness by a gentle wobble at the centre, not a fixed time, the same endpoint test a savoury egg custard uses.
- Whisk the coconut cream and kroeung together off the heat before adding the egg, to avoid any risk of the egg beginning to set before the mixture is packed into its leaf.