Running Amok (Again)

With all the new experiences that travelling to SE Asia has offered, I have been guilty of not indulging some old ones. I hadn't honestly expected Cambodia to offer much in the way of aikido classes, but it recently came to my attention that there are three dojos in Siem Reap run by a Japanese instructor who shares his time between here and Battambang.

As part of the CAA, Shinuchi-sensei runs a class at the local university. I hauled myself out of bed on a Sunday morning and made my way to the dojo. In a small, un-air-conditioned room on the top floor of the building, we lay out the mats and began training.

The class was small - only four people including the instructor and me. Mori Shinuchi-sensei took the class and led us through a light warm-up, by the end of which I was already soaked with sweat. Training here is similar to being in the humidity of Japan, which is apt. I mused that perhaps we should attempt to reproduce this environment in colder climates - as aficionados of bikram yoga have recreated the swelter of India - in order to acclimatise ourselves. Training with Shinuchi-sensei was a boon for practising lightness, softness and centring - the fundamentals of aikido - as he has mastered these elements.

After training, I met K next door at the conveniently situated Vitking House vegetarian restaurant for some breakfast. K had the Asian breakfast staple of rice porridge (babar or bobor, បបរ), which came with a number of additions to spice up the bland soupy base. The tastiest of the condiments was a sweet fermented soya bean paste (sieng phaem or seang pa-em, សៀងផ្អែម, where sieng means soya bean and phaem is sweet). This is created by frying the fermented beans with sugar. I had Chinese noodles with mushrooms, which arrived sizzling on a hotplate. Both were delicious.

I repaired to The Hive café for a slightly underwhelming fruit smoothie (papaya doesn't really taste of much) while K had her hair cut. She went to a salon that helps women who have been victims of the sex trafficking trade and trains them in hairdressing.

For the evening, I had planned to try my hand at the quintessential Khmer dish, amok. Typically prepared with fish (amok trei/trey), we have had a couple of tofu versions so far, which were both quite different. The key ingredients are the kroeung (spice paste), amok leaves, and coconut milk. Besides these, the texture can vary from a creamy, soupy curry to a steamed mousse-like consistency.

I wanted to try steaming the amok like a rich custard (a bit like the Japanese savoury chawan-mushi). Starting with the kroeung, I tried to bash the lemongrass, turmeric root,  lime leaves, galangal and chillies into a paste using the pestle and mortar. We had done this at a cooking class a couple of weeks ago, but with a mortar three times the size, it still too four people about twenty minutes of pulverising to reach the desired consistency.

After what seemed like hours - and a strong desire to reach for a jar of 'lazy boy' pre-minced lemongrass - I satisfied myself that the flavours had been beaten out of the fibrous ingredients. Pounding a handful of peanuts into the mix, I fried the kroeung until aromatic, added shredded amok leaves, green bell pepper, soft tofu and a couple of eggs, topping up the mixture with coconut milk. Steaming produced a soft set custard-like consistency that I was aiming for and, served with a bowlful of 'red' (wholegrain) rice, it wasn't a bad first stab at this Khmer classic.