A Change of Guard

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Tuesday 4 May 2010

Cambodia's time to shine

May 4, 2010
The Melbourne Age

This spicy cuisine is stepping up for a turn in the spotlight, writes David Sutherland.

CHAN Uoy is excited. The part-owner and food director of Melbourne's only Cambodian restaurant, Bopha Devi (which is at two locations: Docklands and Yarraville), is rapt that a Cambodian cookbook, From Spiders to Water Lilies, has been released in Australia. Not just because it supports a great cause - homeless children in Cambodia - but also because it finally puts Cambodian food in the spotlight.

''In terms of tourism, Cambodia is only just now starting to emerge from its black hole, so our cuisine has not become as familiar to people as, say, Thai or Vietnamese,'' he says. ''People have for too long associated Cambodia with Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields. It's about time our great food got some exposure.''

Cambodian food has some similarities to the cuisine of neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam. It also has some marked differences.

The most obvious is prahok, Cambodia's fermented salted fish, which grew from Cambodia's heavy historical reliance on its massive lake, Tonle Sap (meaning ''Great Lake''), and the Mekong River for freshwater fish.

''In the days of the Khmer empire, people salted and fermented the fish to preserve it,'' Uoy says. ''Over the centuries, prahok has contributed to the flavour of all sorts of Cambodian dishes.''

Prahok is used in everything from soups and salads to curries and stir-fries, and its distinctive salty-pungent flavour provides Cambodian cuisine with its most distinctive element.

''You could say it's an acquired taste,'' Uoy says. ''You either appreciate it or you don't. But when it's used correctly and in the right proportions, it can really enhance a dish.''

Prahok appears in various recipes in From Spiders to Water Lilies, which was produced by Friends International, a Cambodian-based charity dedicated to protecting vulnerable children. Apart from the other work the charity does to save children from poverty, slavery and abuse, Friends International also has a restaurant in the capital, Phnom Penh, where it teaches former street children how to cook, wait tables and run a business.

The restaurant - named Romdeng, meaning ''friends'' in Khmer - has become hugely popular, both with locals and tourists. It was the restaurant's head chef, Gutav Auer, who assembled the recipes for the book from his own collection and that of the restaurant team.

Uoy says the recipes that are

featured in From Spiders to Water Lilies are ''quintessential dishes that encapsulate the essence of

Cambodia''.

From Spiders to Water Lilies ($45) is available at cambodiancooking.com.au or from Bopha Devi Docklands and

Yarraville.

SOURCE: Epicure

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