30 Cambodian dishes to try - featured by CNN travel

Cambodia is located in tropical areas so we eat lots of green vegetables and spices that believed to have helped improved the digestion systems.

I love them all and I can cook most of them

Chaa kdam meric kchai (Fried crab with green pepper)

Amok: Amok is a curry made with fresh coconut milk and kroeung.

Below dishes were featured in CNN travel - (text by Lina Goldberg)

1. Samlor korkor: While amok is more familiar to tourists, samlor korkor has a better claim to being the true national dish of Cambodia. It has been eaten for hundreds of years and today can be found in restaurants, roadside stands and family homes.
2. Nom banh chok (Khmer noodles): The dish consists of fresh noodles laboriously pounded out of rice, topped with a fish-based green curry gravy made from lemongrass, fingerroot ginger, turmeric, and garlic. Fresh cucumbers, banana flower, long beans, edible flowers and wild leaves are heaped on top.
3. Amok: Amok is a curry made with fresh coconut milk and kroeung. Traditionally the dish was made with either fish or snails, but now you can find chicken and even vegetarian versions.
4. Bai sach chrouk (Pork and rice): Served early mornings on street corners all over Cambodia, bai sach chrouk, or pork and rice, is one of the simplest and most delicious dishes the country has to offer.
5. Kari sach moan (Chicken red curry): Less spicy than the curries of neighboring Thailand, Cambodian red curry is made using large local red chilies that are remarkably mild, making for a rich but mellow dish.
6. Bok trop pgnon (Pounded eggplant dip): Bok, which translates as "smashed," refers to a style of food preparation that involves pounding ingredients in a large wooden mortar. Trop pgnon are small, bitter pea eggplants, which grow wild in Cambodia.
7. Kha sach ko (Beef stewed in palm sugar): The word kha refers to a style of cooking in Cambodia in which palm sugar is caramelized into a sticky syrup, then used as the base of the dish. The beef version tastes marvelously complex
8. Prahok ktis (Creamy prahok dip): Cooked with fresh coconut cream, palm sugar and minced pork, the pungent prahok (a mash of salty fermented fish) becomes mild enough for even nervous visitors to enjoy.
9. Sngor chruak sach trei (Sour fish soup): The fish is cooked in a light lemongrass broth that's seasoned with lime juice and fried garlic, making for a wholesome soup served with local herbs, including Asian basil and sawleaf coriander.
10. Kari saraman (Beef saraman curry): This rich coconut curry is one of Cambodia's most complicated dishes, and is redolent with spices, with star anise and cassia bark most prominent. The curry is braised with whole peanuts and is most often served with sliced baguette.
11. Nhoam krauch thlong (Pomelo salad): Cambodian salads often use unripe or sour fruits in place of vegetables. In this delicious and refreshing example, giant pomelo is paired with pork belly, toasted coconut and small dried shrimp and garnished with mint and fried shallots.
12. Tuek kroeung: One of Cambodia's best-loved foods, tuek kroeung is a thin but pungent dipping sauce made from fresh river fish and fermented fish, served with an array of fresh seasonal vegetables and herbs.
13. Kha trei svay kchai (Caramelized fish with green mango): Thick striped snakehead fish steaks are placed in a pot of bubbling, caramelized palm sugar, garlic, and fish sauce, plus plenty of locally grown ground black pepper.
14. Kangkep baob (Stuffed frogs): Grilled inside split pieces of bamboo over hot coals, Kangkep baob is like a frog sausage, rich with root spices and slightly sweetened by palm sugar.
15. Mi kola (Kola noodles): The Kola are an ethnic minority in Cambodia. Kola noodles are garnished with dried shrimp, hard-boiled egg slices, cucumbers, peanuts, and fresh herbs and mixed with a tangy lime-garlic-shallot dressing.
16. Chrok krao chhnang (Out of the pot soup): Rather than preparing it in a pot over a flame, like most Cambodian soups, for chrok krao chhnang the cook assembles the ingredients in a large bowl, then pours boiling water over them to create a broth.
17. Plea sach ko (Lime-marinated beef salad): More beef than salad, plea sach ko is a party dish that is served at festive occasions such as weddings, or alongside beer during a night out on the town.
18. Chha trop dott (Grilled eggplant with pork): This simple dish is one of Cambodia's most accessible. Eggplant is grilled over an open flame or hot coals, then topped with minced pork fried in garlic and oyster sauce.
19. Chaa kdam meric kchai (Fried crab with green pepper): Local crab is a specialty of the Cambodian seaside town of Kep. Its lively crab market is known for fried crab prepared with green, locally grown Kampot pepper.
20. Samlor m'chu kroeung sach ko (Lemongrass beef sour soup): This delicious soup is the perfect antidote to a hangover, a cold, or a rainy tropical day. It comes in two styles: plain or ktis, with coconut milk.
21. Maam chao (Raw fermented fish): More adventurous eaters will enjoy maam chao, a dish made with a type of raw, fermented fish known as maam.
22. Somlor proher (Fragrant vegetable soup): The soup's base is a lemongrass paste made with fingerroot ginger, and it can be made with any number of vegetables, usually home grown or foraged.
23. Ang dtray meuk (Grilled squid with Koh Kong sauce): The squid are brushed with either lime juice or fish sauce and then barbecued on wooden skewers and served with Koh Kong sauce, made from garlic, fresh chilies, fish sauce, lime juice and sugar.
24. Nhoam svay kchai (Green mango salad): Green mango salad is a classic whose flavors of sour fruit, salty smoked fish and sweet palm sugar form a beautifully harmonious whole.
25. Aluek trei ngeat (Dried fish and watermelon): In this dish, snakehead fish, abundant in the country's waterways, are salted and dried, then grilled over charcoal and served with thick chunks of sweet ripe watermelon, for a perfect sweet-and-umami contrast.
26. Chaa angrong sach ko (Red tree ants with beef and holy basil): The tree-dwelling red weaver ant, some barely visible and others almost an inch long, are stir-fried with ginger, lemongrass, garlic, shallots, and thinly sliced beef.
27. Kuy teav (Noodle soup): Every country in Southeast Asia has its own version of noodle soup, and kuy teav is Cambodia's, a flavorful pork-bone-and-squid broth most often served with pork or beef, fish balls, and fried garlic.
28. Sngor ngam nov sach moan (Pickled lime soup with chicken): Limes are packed in salt and left to dry in the sun, or boiled briefly and soaked in salt water for several weeks or months. They give this chicken soup a unique flavor evocative of Moroccan cooking.
29. Num ansom (Sticky rice cakes): These sticky rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves are so emblematic of Cambodia that in 2015 the government made a giant num ansom weighing 8,900 pounds and displayed it in front of Angkor Wat to earn a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
30. Trei boeng kanh chhet (Fried fish in the lake): A whole fish is deep-fried and then finished on a hotplate at the table in a coconut curry made from yellow kroeung and chilies. For more details, go to https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/top-cambodia-foods-intl-hnk/index.html

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