Mainland Southeast Asia · Volume 41, The Coconut and the Court

Samlar kako

Name: Samlar kako
Total time: 1 h
Yield: Serves 6
Cuisine: Angkor and Ayutthaya
Ingredients: 2 pork spare ribs; 1 catfish fillet; ½ cup rice, roasted and ground; 3 tbsp fish sauce; 1 tbsp prahok; 2 stalks lemongrass, 6 kaffir lime leaves, 1 tbsp turmeric, 6 garlic cloves, 1 shallot, 3 fingerroot, 4 slices galangal green kroeung: lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, turmeric, garlic, shallot, fingerroot, galangal; as available pumpkin, carrot, and other seasonal vegetables

Cambodia

Samlar kako, a thick roasted rice porridge of vegetables, catfish and pork in green kroeung: a wide bowl of a thick, khaki green porridge-like stew, chunks of orange pumpkin, pale catfish flesh and pork visible just beneath its dense.

An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.

Time: 1 hour

Researched: 8 sources cited
Reviewed: Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
Cooked: Not yet cooked and reported

Green kroeung, prahok, roasted ground rice, catfish, pork or chicken and a wide seasonal vegetable mix, the dish's own name, kako, meaning to stir, a direct instruction rather than a decoration.

As tradition built it

Serves 6. About 1 hour.

Ingredients

2 pork spare ribs
1 catfish fillet
½ cup rice, roasted and ground
3 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp prahok
2 stalks lemongrass, 6 kaffir lime leaves, 1 tbsp turmeric, 6 garlic cloves, 1 shallot, 3 fingerroot, 4 slices galangal green kroeung: lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, turmeric, garlic, shallot, fingerroot, galangal
as available pumpkin, carrot, and other seasonal vegetables

Method

Toast the rice in a dry pan to a deep amber, then grind to a fine powder.
Fry the kroeung, with the prahok worked directly into it, in oil with the pork spare ribs until fragrant.
Add water and the firmest vegetables, pumpkin and carrot, with half the ground rice, and simmer.
Add softer vegetables and the remaining rice as the stew thickens, stirring continuously to stop it catching.
Add the catfish toward the end, season with fish sauce, and simmer until everything is tender and the stew has thickened to a loose porridge.

What a modern chef changes

The rice given the fine, even grind hand pounding rarely achieves.

Rung 5

Method

Grind the toasted rice in a dedicated spice grinder for a genuinely fine, consistent powder that dissolves without grit, a real improvement over hand pounding for this ingredient specifically.
Run this stage on a controlled hob rather than live fire, since the continuous stirring the dish demands suits neither a Big Green Egg nor an unattended pot.
Add the fish only in the last few minutes, off a fully developed base, so it stays in distinct, tender flakes rather than dissolving into the stew.

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