Khmer · Main · Served at Mekong (#5 and #6)
Fish amok
Amok trei
Amok is a coconut and fish custard steamed in a banana-leaf-lined bowl. It should set soft with a wobble and smell of lemongrass and makrut before anything else.
Without the eggs it won't set. The color comes from mild dried peppers. Hot dried chiles leave a bitter aftertaste.
Adapted from Chef Nak's fish amok, from her cookbook Nhum (opens in a new tab), with much more kroeung, bird chiles, fish sauce, MSG, more egg, and some of the fish blended into the custard, steamed in lined bowls.
- Yield
- Four 6-inch bowls, one per person as a main
- Time
- About an hour, plus the kroeung. Steaming takes 40 minutes and is hands-off except the tier swaps.
Ingredients
Serves
Amok
- 680 gfirm white fish, 2 to 3 cm cubes (swai, basa, or catfish)
- 100 gkroeung, hand-pounded
- 55 gmild dried red pepper paste (below)
- 4Thai bird chiles, pounded into the kroeung
- 10 gprahok or pla ra, or shrimp paste if you can find neither
- 20 gpalm sugar
- 6 gsalt
- 2 tbspfish sauce
- ½ tspMSG (the pla ra alone isn't enough)
- 2eggs
- 225 gunsweetened coconut cream (Aroy-D or Savoy), hold back 4 tsp for the tops
- 1long red pepper, shredded and soaked to curl, for garnish
- 2makrut lime leaves, fine chiffonade, for garnish
- 4banana leaves
Pepper paste
- about 35 gdried mild red peppers (California or guajillo), for about 55 g of paste
- hot water to soak, then discard
- a splash of coconut cream, for blending
Method
- Make the pepper paste first. Stem and seed the dried peppers and scrape out the white pith. Soak 20 to 30 minutes in hot (not boiling) water until soft. Drain and throw the soak water away.
- Blend the peppers while they are still warm and soft with a splash of coconut cream until completely smooth. Sieve it if you see flecks of skin. Weigh out 55 g.
- Pat the fish cubes dry. Take 20 to 25% of the fish, about 150 g, and blend it smooth with a spoonful of the coconut cream.
- Pound the bird chiles into the kroeung, then mash the prahok or pla ra in until smooth. Mix in the pepper paste, palm sugar, salt, fish sauce, and eggs until smooth. Stir in the coconut cream, then the blended fish.
- Taste now. It should taste slightly too salty raw, and the lemongrass and makrut should come through first.
- Fold in the fish cubes. Rest 15 to 20 minutes.
- Line each bowl with banana leaf, shiny side up. Fill to about 1 cm below the rim. Loosely fold the extra leaf over the top; do not wrap it tight.
- Set a bamboo steamer over a rolling boil, one bowl per tier.
- Steam 15 to 18 minutes, until the center wobbles and does not slosh.
- Top with the reserved coconut cream, makrut, and pepper curls.
Notes
- Each 6-inch bowl takes about 170 g of fish.
- Use swai, basa, or catfish. Cod and haddock fall apart.
- Prahok is traditional. Pla ra (gouramy fish sauce in a jar) is close enough, and shrimp paste works if you can find neither.
- If the soaked peppers sit overnight they toughen up again. Re-soak them 10 minutes in hot water before blending.
- The kroeung and pepper paste keep a day in the fridge.
What I use
- Bamboo steamer: Joyce Chen 10", two tier (opens in a new tab)
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