Hostel.
The class, however, was excellent, including stretching, asana practice, breathing and relaxation. At the end we were encouraged to smile, but we didn't need much encouragement. It felt good. I still miss the formal start and end of class at the Sivananda centre (probably from years of bowing to various aikido instructors).
The Peace Café also offers a Khmer cooking class. Only K and I signed up today, so it was a personal class. While we waited, we refreshed ourselves with juices of lemongrass and carrot - the latter as orange as the small towels provided to us.
In a traditional Khmer hut built on stilts with rush matting on the floor, two girls led us professionally and informatively through the preparation process, smiling as they explained the ingredients. Charged with a very sharp knife, we began slicing and chopping the vegetables as directed.
First up were fresh spring rolls - an import from Vietnam that uses the circular dried rice paper known as bánh tráng in Vietnamese. I had used this myself before, but learned the tip not to wet the paper too long, otherwise it will become sticky and difficult to handle. Julienned carrot, sticks of cucumber, Thai basil and lettuce were rolled into fat cylinders. A dipping sauce of palm sugar, mushroom stock, salt was then prepared to complement the rolls. The sauce ingredients were simmered with water and, when cool, lime juice and peanuts were added. We tasted it - it was the perfect balance of sweet, sour, salty and savoury, and a foil to the relatively bland flavour of the rolls, which had a satisfying raw crunch and pleasing chewiness from the wrapper. The resulting rolls were tight and didn't disintegrate when sliced or dipped.
While we were both familiar with most of the ingredients used, having sourced and used them ourselves in various attempts at Asian cuisine, we had never before seen a green papaya. Much larger than the regular sweet papaya, this looked like a long melon. Having scooped out the seeds, we set to work peeling the white-green flesh into long thin strands. Adding thinly sliced raw white and purple cabbage, and long green beans to the mix, the salad was almost done. The chef whipped up a dressing composed of similar ingredients to the dipping sauce: palm sugar, salt, mushroom stock powder, and lime juice. Tossed with the dressing and garnished with thinly sliced red chilli, chopped roasted peanuts and the ubiquitous Thai basil for colour and taste.
The final dish was my favourite: amok curry. This was a different dish to Chamkar's amok bites - tiny parcels in a coconut sauce - being a more straightforward curry. The bulk of the preparation for this dish lay in making the paste. We sliced and diced lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, and fresh turmeric root (staining K's fingers yellow), which was transferred to an enormous wooden mortar with a good helping of roasted peanuts and some chilli paste We all sat in a circle on the rush matting floor, taking it in turns to pound the constituents into a yellow, pungent paste with a pestle the size of a baseball bat.
With the citrusy, nutty paste prepared, the chef took over, transferring it to a pan with water, sticky mushroom sauce, soy sauce and coconut milk. As the base of the curry cooked, we sliced green bell pepper and amok leaf to add to the rectangles of fried tofu which would complete the dish. The fresh amok leaf tasted slightly bitter and a little citrusy - I suspect greens or kale could also be used to similar effect if this was not available.
By the end, we had prepared a feast fit for a family of four. I thought we would enjoy the fruits of our labour with our co-creators, but they had to get back to running the café, so the dishes were ours in their entirety. The chef spirited up some wholegrain rice (naturally) to accompany the amok curry, and some of ripest, fruitiest mango I have ever tasted. We sat in the garden and gluttonously devoured every last scrap. Having not had any breakfast before yoga, we were hungry but still left with bellies groaning. It was one of the best meals so far.
In the evening, we picked up another pair of White Bicycles for the 'grand circuit' of Angkor tomorrow. Still full from lunch, we ate some fruit, which included a purple star apple, or 'milk fruit'. We scooped out the white flesh inside, which had a slightly sweet flavour and soft texture but no distinctive characteristics. Apparently, in Cambodia, milk fruit is known as the 'princess' of fruit. Sapodilla is the prince, mangosteen the queen, and durian the king. I know what I think about durian (avoid), but I haven't tried the other two. A mission for the next trip to the market.
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