From farm to table...

For our stay in Cambodia, we chose to stay at the Park Hyatt downtown Siem Reap within walking distance to all the shops. Chef  Pisith was wonderful. He prepared all my celiac sons meals personally. And then he guided us on a farm to table foodie tour. Chef Pisith began the tour at the local markets. Below are the local farmers selling their produce and seafood. Their selling needs to be wrapped up by noon. These poor ladies sit crouched for hours selling their wares. Makes my back hurt just thinking about it. 

The hubs is obsessed with the different types of fish in each country. He's always quizzing the vendors about the names of fish and where they came from. In English! 

These are separate vendors who I assume probably lease the space in the market.

After touring the markets, we drove out to a remote village. This is one of the last area villages that still make homemade rice noodles without electricity. Stella took her turn milling the rice into rice milk. 

After the rice is milled into milk and mush, the mush is wrapped in cheesecloth and ferments for several days. The lady above then places the fermented mush on a metal plate. (How does the dowel strike the plate? There are three people on the other end operating like a see saw.) The large wooden dowel pounds it into a dough. And yes, she kept moving the dough around while the dowel was striking. I could barely watch - for fear she'd lose a finger (or two. or a hand.). The dough is then placed into a metal tube with a sieve on the bottom and the dough gets pushed through the tube into boiling water. And whoa la- rice noodles!

This is the restaurant that purchases the rice noodles and sells the noodle dish, nam banchock. 

And finally, nam ban chok  prahal - a khmer noodle fish curry with long beans, cucumber, green papaya, yellow pear flower and water lilly stems. We could not indulge in the village final dish, but instead Chef Pisith made the same curry with safer sourced ingredients for us. It was delicious. I have been trying to find the recipe, but having trouble sourcing Cambodian recipes. Anyone have any leads?


xox,
Christine