Turn up the heat!

We learn to cook the Khmer foods

There's a restaurant here called Smokin' Pot. It's been here for about 11 years. There's another restaurant here called One More Smokin' Pot. It's been here for about a year or so. They offer cooking classes. We took one last Friday:

We'd invited Ridvan and Wody, and some new friends, Zack and Eve, to come join us in the cooking class. This might be the first real like "couples activity" we've done. Wow. I just realized what I wrote. Means I'm seriously married right? When you start doing "couples activities"?! Either way was tres fun. We met up at about 9am, and sorted out what dishes we were going to cook. We settled on the classics, Fish Amok, Beef Lok-Lak, and Cha Krueng. Ok, that last one doesn't seem like a classic, but, as we discovered, its a pretty stock dish, and the name just means "fried spice". After deciding on some dishes, we headed straight to the market.

 VEGGIES!

The first stop in the market was to buy some fish for the fish amok. This was actually a really cool part of the class, because we got a chance to find out which vendors our chef buys his food from, how he chooses it, what questions he asks, and how much he pays. For the two tourists that tagged on to our group, this was a fun experience, but for the six of us that live here, this information is like solid gold! For example, we may want to eat fish amok in the future. Rather than buy the whole fish, and have to gut it ourselves, we can simply say "filet", and the fish-sellers'll hook you up with some filet-o-fish

(Side note: these fish are intense. It was a bit unnerving to come here to shop for the fresh fish because they were still jumping. you can see the netting in the photo that covers the bucket-o-fish. This was not enough to stop them, as they actually hopped up and down, forcing the netting open, and then, when the seller was distracted, hopped right out of the bucket and onto the sidewalk! It didn't stop there, I swear that two of them seemed like they were making a "run" for the river.
Part of me really wanted to see them make it back to the water. We tried to get the seller's attention, but she was in the zone with that filleting, so Wody took it upon himself to pick up the fish and return them to the bucket.)

We also picked up some fresh veggies (learning the Khmer names for them along the way), and some things like dried chili(!), and roasted peanut. He also told us where to get the best cuts of beef, and whom to get them from, but when we went, the lady was all sold out. So we discovered who the second-best is as well. (Again, side note: Emily and I don't really cook meat. Not that we're intense about being vegetarian, or even that we're put-off the rawness of the market, just that it doesn't seems to happen.) We took our goodies back to the restaurant, and then had 15 minutes to hang out while our Chef's assistants did all the washing!

And we COOKED:

So HOT!

Beef Lok-Lak

Emily tests out her plate decoration skills

Cha Krueng Saek Moun (sp?)

We were all incredibly stuffed by the end, since we ate the fruits of our labour as soon as they were cooked. Em and Eve couldn't finish the last one, so they packed it up to go. We got cookbooks when we finished, so if you want a Cambodian meal, feel free to come visit, and we'll make sure you get a delicious Fish Amok, or Beef Lok-Lak when you do! 

I can't remember much of the rest of that day, but I know we were invited to GEMS for dinner, and we got a second class (for free!) in how to best prep Vietnamese coffees. Thanks Prema!